Freesia Juliet
by GreyEyedDetective
Summary: Happily ever after may never come for Bella and Edward, especially when he's determined not to turn her and she is forced to abandon him for the enemy, the Volturi, to get what she wants. How will Romeo ever get back his Freesia Juliet?
1. Promise

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter One: Promise

* * *

**

I guess I should have seen it coming. There sat Charlie, arms folded, sitting in the kitchen, staring me down. "Do you know what time it is, young lady?"

I blinked. Alright, to be fair, it **was** pretty late. But I was over eighteen now, and I was pretty sure that meant I didn't need a curfew anymore. Then again, you never could tell with Charlie. I blinked again. "Uh… sometime past one?" I guessed, shifting my eyes to try to see the clock on the wall.

"Two thirty!" rumbled Charlie. "Where have you been?!"

_The meadow was fantastically beautiful. At that moment, I couldn't decide whether it looked better in the sunlight or the moonlight._

_Edward was stretched out on the ground, propped up by his elbows. I laid in the grass next to him, my head on his shoulder. "I'm going to muss my dress," I warned passively, knowing that Alice would probably throw a fit if I returned covered in hayseeds and burrs._

"_It's a nice dress," agreed Edward, making lazy patterns in the yellowed spring weeds with the toe of his dress shoe. It **was**_ _a nice dress- Alice had picked it out for me. It was navy blue satin, backless and strapless with not a hint of sequin or embroidery; it traveled all the way down to my feet. Elegant, and just perfect for my senior prom. "It's my favorite color on you," added Edward quietly, his angelic voice crooning in my ear._

_I blushed. "I know."_

_He finally took his attention from the star-speckled night above us and turned to face me. "You've finally graduated."_

"_Good observation," I responded dryly._

"_Carlisle promised you—"_

"_Oh hush, you know I want **you** to do it."_

_He hesitated. "After we're married."_

_I rolled my eyes. "I know. After we're married." I mimicked his voice in a passable imitation._

_He smiled, but his eyes were still serious. "You spend too much time with me."_

"_A hazard to my health?"_

"_You know me too well," he chuckled, sitting up and wrapping his arms around my waist. I laid my head back on his shoulder. I felt his topaz eyes burning holes in my skin, they were so intense. I shivered. "Cold?"_

"_No," I said weakly, suddenly finding his presence overwhelming. _Breathe_, I reminded myself._

"_Just in case," said Edward, retrieving Rosalie's black cotton wrap from behind us and draping it around my shoulders. He kissed the top of my head. I held back another shiver._

_One arm left my waist. I cocked my head and watched him dig into the inner pocket of his tux jacket. "What's that?"_

"_A promise," he responded mysteriously, pulling out a tiny velveteen box. There was something on the lid, something foreign I didn't understand._

"_Edward, where did you get that?" I said, breathing in sharply. I pulled my head off his shoulder and stood up, aghast._

"_That's something no man wants to hear," Edward joked as he stood up with me._

"_Edward, I told you, I can't—"_

"_Hang on," he growled in irritation, dropping to one knee. "At least let me get this out before you reject me again."_

"_Edward, I—"_

"_Isabella Marie Swann, will you be mine for all eternity? Will you marry me?" he asked slowly, as if savoring each word. He opened the box._

_Inside was the biggest diamond ring I'd ever seen. Blinded by its glory, I squeezed my eyes shut. "Bella?" he asked, his voice ringing of worry. _

_My heart was going a thousand miles an hour, even though I had known that this would happen, sooner or later. Of course, I had counted on later, not sooner. Well, if marriage was the condition I was bound by, than marriage would be the hurdle to overcome. If I wanted eternity with Edward, I had to do things his way. As usual._

_I opened my eyes. Edward's liquid butterscotch eyes were brimming with hope. The hope that he could dazzle me into this. It only took a moment for me to be hooked in those damn godly eyes. My breath hitched. "Yes, I'll marry you Edward Cullen," I said with a wry grin, "but God help me if I end up liking it."_

"_Good enough for me," laughed Edward, practically forcing the ring onto my finger._

"_A bit ostentatious, isn't it?"_

"_Ostentatious?" repeated Edward, looking mortified._

"'_The ring Rhett brought back from England was large indeed, so large it embarrassed Scarlett to wear it. She loved gaudy and expensive jewelry, but she had an uneasy feeling that everyone was saying, with perfect truth, that this ring was vulgar. The central stone was a four-carat diamond…It reached to the knuckle of her finger and gave her hand the appearance of being weighted down. Scarlett had a suspicion that Rhett had gone to great pains to have the ring made up and, for pure meanness, had ordered it made as ostentatious as possible.'Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell," I said with a completely straight face._

"_I can't believe you just compared this lovely ring with..." began Edward with a whine. "I did not make it large out of meanness," he added weakly, realizing that this ring was actually quite similar to the one Ms. Mitchell described._

"_It's vulgar!"_

"_It's gaudy."_

"_It's garish and extravagant," I said, surprised Edward was playing along._

"_It's flashy and showy."_

"_Tasteless and naughty," he said with a grin._

"_Flamboyant and… improper." I was struggling for words now._

"_It's kitschy," he said, sure that he had beat me._

"_Kitschy?" I repeated in disbelief. "That's a word?"_

"_Look it up," Edward retorted._

_I shrugged in defeat. "Like I said, ostentatious."_

"_You repeated," accused Edward playfully. Then he kissed me._

"Bella," repeated Charlie, "where were you?"

I deliberately swathed Rosalie's wrap around my left hand, to hide Edward's engagement ring. "Celebrating with Edward," I admitted nervously. Charlie still hated my boyfriend… er, fiancé, and had only reluctantly allowed me to go to prom with him after my graduation this afternoon. "What are **you** doing up, anyway?" I said, turning the tables.

"I have to go out," said Charlie, eying my bedraggled appearance. Running on Edward's back to and from the meadow had taken the life out of my curls. "I was called twenty minutes ago about a sighting of those giant wolf things."

"More hikers dead?" I said, feeling my throat tighten. Victoria. And Edward and I had been easy game to her all night, alone in the meadow.

"No," he said, shaking his head. I wrinkled my brow, confused. If not Victoria, then who? Sam's pack certainly wouldn't be coming after the Cullens. They hadn't broken the treaty! "But the wolves have been seen tonight straying very close to Forks, on the border of La Push. They've never been seen this close to town before." I could tell Charlie was worried.

At that moment, however, I felt jealous of my father. Charlie only had a few wolves to worry about. Wolves who would never attack any of the small population of Forks. After all, the Quintile werewolves were there to protect people, not harm them. I, on the other hand, had quite a bit to worry about. I had to worry about my father, who would be going out into the middle of what could be a vampire attack. I had to worry about my vampire family, the Cullens, who might not know that danger was coming. And I had to worry about myself, though this worry was a small one.

"Do you have to go out tonight?" I asked, letting my worry betray me in my voice.

"I'll be fine, Bells," assured Charlie. "You go get some sleep now."

"G'night," I mumbled, pretending to be tired as I fake yawned and walked up the stairs. In truth, my heart was racing like a jackrabbit.

"Edward?" I whispered as I entered my bedroom. "Edward?" My heart beat a little faster, if that was even possible.

Oh, thank God. There was a note on the bed in Edward's curly antique handwriting.

_**Bella,**_

_**Alice needed me for a moment. Be back in ten minutes.**_

_**Love you,**_

_**Edward**_

I relaxed a little. If Alice had summoned Edward, then she knew that I would be safe without him. They were probably solving the mystery of the creeping werewolves right now.

I took out the eight trillion hairpins that held my updo in place and scattered them on my dresser. I had never seen so many bobby pins on one surface. I took a close look at myself in the mirror, sighing over each tiny scar and blemish on my face. I certainly wasn't even close to perfect, like Edward and his family were. And I would be nineteen in three months. That was way too old in my opinion, especially since now I was going to spend all eternity with a vampire who was forever seventeen.

I heard a small thump downstairs, and realized that Charlie had finally left the house. I waited to hear the squad car start, but the silence remained. There were small fits of nerves beginning to eat away at my stomach. I glanced at the clock. Two forty-five. Good. Edward would be back any minute now.

I took a second look at the ring before I sat down on my bed and clicked off the lamp light. A light, pleasant scent filled the room. Okay, I know it sounds strange, but I've always been able to smell vampires, and Edward was especially strong to me. He smelled like warm honey and musk.

"Edward," I said with a smile, standing up.

"Sorry, you don't win the million dollar prize after all," snarled a voice in the dark.

_Victoria!!_ my mind screamed before the redhead stepped out of the darkness and into the streaming moonlight.

"You know," she said as her ruby eyes froze me into a statue, "killing you has turned out to be more difficult than I planned. You seem to always have the Swiss Guard around you, Queen Isabella," she smirked viciously.

She circled around me, as if looking for the best angle to take me down. Pure predator. Shaking, my mind began a familiar mantra: _I love you Edward. I love you Edward. I love you Edward. Edward. Edward. Edward…_ and so on.

"What? No feeble outcry that Edward will save you?" asked Victoria, sounding disappointed. Her icy hands gripped my shoulders and she stared into my dead eyes, looking all the way down into my collapsing soul. With an almost casual shove, she threw me over my bed and into the wall with a resounding crash as bone crunched against plaster.

The pain was blinding, from my head to my toes. _I love you Edward. I love you Edward. Edward. Edward…_ my mind persisted, resisting the hazy darkness that threatened to envelop my vision.

She dragged me by my feet to the foot of the bed and glared contemptuously at my mangled body. "You're not even worth it," she accused.

With a devastating strike from her foot to my jaw, I heard a sickening snap as my neck lolled to an impossible angle. With that, I was washed away into the merciful darkness.

* * *


	2. Rescue

**

* * *

Author's Note: I do not own Twilight or New Moon. You should know that by now.

* * *

__****Freesia Juliet**

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter Two: Rescue**

**(Edward's Point of View)

* * *

**

I smiled involuntarily as I ran towards Bella's house. Alice had dragged me all the way back to the house just to congratulate me. She had 'seen' Bella's acceptance the moment she made up her mind.

It had been a close one. For a moment, I had been certain that Bella was going to say no, again. She was so determined to become one of us. To throw her life away as a normal human and live as a monster, like me. My Bella had one small flaw, if you could even call it that. She was just so determined that they only way I would ever love her was if she was forever young. I had tried to explain to her that I wouldn't care if she was ninety five and smothered in wrinkles like a raisin- I would still love her, because she was Bella.

Charlie's squad car was still in the drive way. Funny, I had heard in his thoughts that he was going out to keep the werewolves away from Forks. Stupid dogs. They had gotten it into their heads that Victoria had returned, and now they were straining to go after her like mutts on leashes. Alice had assured me that she hadn't seen anything in the near future with Victoria in it.

I snuck in the kitchen door and moved like a shadow up towards Bella's room. Usually I came in through her bedroom window, but tonight I wanted to surprise her by going through the door.

As I was about to go up the stairs, I smelled something in the living room that hit my senses like a cannon ball. Blood. Human blood. Even though I had gone hunting this morning, I still had to fight against every instinct and emotion to keep myself under control.

Afraid of what I might find in the living room, I went in cautiously, no longer breathing. My fears were confirmed. Sprawled across the coffee table was Charlie Swan, a look of surprise on his contorted face. His chest was ripped open. Dead.

"Bella!" I screamed in a roar, upstairs in her room in an instant. I was sure I saw a flash of red hair before the glass of the window exploded outward. _Victoria!!_ shouted my mind in a blind fury. But I commanded myself to stop and go to Bella.

My Bella. My poor, poor Bella. Limp at the foot of her bed, her body strangely twisted in a pool of her own blood, which soaked all the way through her blue satin prom dress. Her neck was backwards and sideways at the same time. She was dead.

She was dead.

She was dead.

With a roar of agony I collapsed next to her, sobbing dryly as I cradled her mangled form. This was just like before, just like James's attack in the ballet studio, where I had had to find her dying from the wound on her head.

But this time was different. This time her neck was broken. This time there was no Carlisle to stop the bleeding.

"Edward, oh no!" said a voice with pain and shock from the doorway. Carlisle. Carlisle, who was ever calm in a crisis.

"Carlisle?" I said with confusion. How the hell had he gotten here? Then Alice was next to him, her face white and taunt as she fought back both her anguish and the scent of Bella's blood, which now covered me. Funny, it didn't seem to be bothering me. And I was the one it had always tempted the most. She smelled like freesia and wine… floral and rich.

"Edward, you need to let me help her," said Carlisle with urgency as he pried her bloody corpse from by stiff fingers. He placed to fingers to her neck. "Still alive," he announced with relief as he found a fluttery faint pulse. "But she's too weak to turn," he said grimly, dashing my slight hopes to pieces. "Alice, grab the bed sheets. One goes around her back, to stop the bleeding from her spine. The other needs to be around her neck, for support. Edward, get the headboard."

Numb, I frantically tore the headboard from the bed and nearly smashed Alice in the face with it as she ripped at the bed for the sheets. Carlisle gave commands as Alice and I helped him tie her securely to the wooden board we were using as a stretcher.

Alice had to retreat from the room after a minute or two, because the smell of blood was getting to her. It still wasn't bothering me. Probably because I was too focused on saving my Bella to let my instincts take hold. Perhaps this was how Carlisle fought off his vampire instincts enough to be an emergency room doctor.

"We'll run her to the hospital," pronounced Carlisle, "because it's faster than driving."

Rosalie was downstairs in the kitchen, her face deep in an angry frown. "Jasper and Emmett are still after her," Rose told me, "but she did have a head start. I came back to see if I could help here."

Carlisle nodded as we maneuvered the board out the kitchen door. "Drive Edward's car down to the hospital, so it looks like we came by car. And have Alice call an ambulance for Charlie." Rosalie winced.

"What's the story?" she hissed. At first I didn't understand what she meant. Until I realized that telling the cops about a vampire killing the police chief and his daughter would probably sound a little suspicious.

"Home invasion," I said without a second thought.

"It'll work," agreed Alice. "I'll smash some stuff and throw their valuables around. Nobody will be able to tell if things are missing, because Charlie" –her voice caught- "and Bella are in no condition to speak."

"We have to go. Now," said Carlisle firmly.

We sprinted off towards the hospital at a speed invisible to humans. I was faster than Carlisle, and I strained to keep my full speed in check so that I didn't upset the board and kill Bella.

Within five minutes, we were at the auto doors of Peninsula Community Hospital's ER wing.

"Dr. Cullen," blinked the nurse on staff as she gaped at our rather unorthodox method of getting a patient to the hospital. A more competent nurse pulled a gurney from the hallway and helped us get Bella onto it.

"Bella Swan, age eighteen. Her father was killed in a home invasion tonight. Broken neck vertebra here," Carlisle pointed, "and several broken ribs. At least one artery in her spine is torn. She'll need to get into surgery right away," he commanded as other doctors and residents swarmed over my Bella and began shouting things like blood pressure and blood type.

Carlisle stayed back. "Edward," he said gently, "she'll pull through." He had read the agony on my face like an open book.

My whole body was trembling with rage and pain. "I have to go kill that bitch Victoria," I snarled in a whisper.

"No," said Carlisle, placing a strong restraining hand on my arm.

"Why?" I asked with frustration.

He gestured towards two horrified police officers who were striding quickly towards us. "You're covered in blood, Edward," he reminded me. I looked down at my once white shirt and black pants, which were stained thickly with Bella's blood. "They're going to need statements from both of us. A respected member of the Forks community was murdered tonight, and we discovered the body."

* * *

"Edward Cullen, eighteen, sir," I answered the question with a somber and saddened face. "I've known Chief Swan for two years now. I'm engaged to his daughter." 

Lt. Adams looked me sternly in the face, his eyes flickering when I announced our engagement. "When did you find Chief Swan's body?" I could hear his head ringing with accusations. The boyfriend kills the father because the father objects to the engagement.

"Two forty-five, sir." I kept my eyes respectfully low, though I felt like ripping his face off. We were wasting time! Victoria could be God knows where by now!

"What were you doing at the Swan residence at practically three in the morning?" asked Lt. Maker, Adams's partner.

"I took Bella to the Forks High School prom tonight, sir. I dropped her off at her house at two thirty, and her father was angry that I got her back so late. She realized she had left her purse at my house, so I went back to get it. My father, Dr. Cullen, and my sister Alice came back to the Swan's to help me apologize better, and explain that Bella had been at our after-prom party." I paused for dramatic effect. "When we got back, the door was busted in and the lights were off. We went inside and Alice saw Chief Swan's body in the living room."

Carlisle glanced at his pager quietly while I was telling my lie, and smiled thinly.

_She's out of surgery_, thought Carlisle.

I tilted my head. _She's going to be fine, but it was a close one._

I breathed a sigh of relief and Lt. Adams looked surprised. He had been working up an accusation.

Suddenly I didn't even care what they said. There was still that overwhelming sense of guilt and anger and hatred for the murderous she-devil that had done this to my Bella.

"We'll call you if we have any more questions, Cullen," said Adams crossly, disappointed when the officer at the scene, Bedford, had corroborated my testimony with Alice's and the neighbor, Mrs. Finnan, who had heard me drive away in my car before the 'murder.'

Jasper's thoughts drifted into my mind. Most of them were too profane to repeat. Then Emmett joined him. _Sorry Edward, but Victoria got away.

* * *

_


	3. Dream

**Author's Note: Stephanie Meyers owns _Twilight_ and_ New Moon_. I don't. Got it? **

_

* * *

_

_Freesia Juliet_

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter Three: Dream**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

**

I opened my eyes, and discovered I was no longer lying dead on the floor of my bedroom. This was definitely an improvement. The problem was, I had no idea where I was, or more importantly, **when** I was.

The sunlight was intense, glinting off of the brownstone building I stood below. _Summer_, I decided, because it was warm and bright and the little curbside trees were in full foliage. I looked at my shaking hands, and realized they were hidden in handsome little yellow gloves. God, my neck ached, though I couldn't think why.

And my breathing was tight. That was because I was wearing a corset. I discovered that the whalebone torture device did little for my figure, so it was basically useless. My eyes watered, and for a moment I couldn't focus.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" asked a polite voice from the curbside. It was a man in a duster and cap, who grinned friendly-like from a roaring vehicle. _A roadster,_ my brain supplied. How could I have missed the awful racket before?

I was really struggling to breathe now. "I've been better," I wavered, and the gentleman was at my side, discretely holding my elbow so that I didn't collapse right there in the street of this strange city.

"Are you sick, ma'am?" asked the man nervously. "The influenza has been particularly bad this summer." I could feel him keep his arm's-length distance both because of propriety and because of fear.

"I was on my way to the hospital," I admitted, though I had had no such thoughts before.

"I'll take you," offered the man reluctantly. I nodded, and swallowed. My throat was dusty and dry. How long had I been standing here, in the streets of Chicago? The hem of my rose ankle-length cotton dress was coated in gritty gray dirt, but I couldn't remember why.

"I could take you home," offered the man as he helped me settle my skirt into the roadster.

"No, I need to go to the hospital. My fiancé is there, and he's very ill," I responded. Chances were I'd find Edward there. And I couldn't remember where **home** was!

"Dying?" asked the man with morbid curiosity. I pursed my lips into what I imagined was the correct twentieth century frown. "Sorry," he apologized. "I lost my sister to the influenza last summer."

"No, I am sorry," I grimaced, "it is not unusual for people to ask." _It is not unusual for people to ask?_ my mind repeated, surprised. Since when had I ever spoken that way? Okay, the 1900s were really beginning to rub off on me.

The roadster gave a cough and a lurch, and began to creep down the road. The man, whom I fancied to call Mister Jones, held the steering wheel in a death grip, as though he expected it to speed out of control. I held back a laugh. We were barely going twenty, for God's sake. _Reminds me of my truck_, I thought fondly.

People on the sidewalk shot us venomous glares and pulled away from the street. Horses panicked and jolted their carriages. "Is it always like this?" I asked, no longer able to hold back my laughter.

"Hmm?" he said, wary to let his eyes off the road for just one second.

"People fleeing in the opposite direction. To be sure, I've never seen this sort of reaction!" I tittered.

"Then you have never ridden in an automobile."

"It's nineteen-eighteen," I protested, regaining my composure, "You'd think they'd be used to them by now." I realized my mistake.

'Mr. Jones' looked at me like I had gone insane. "Where did you say you were from?"

"I didn't say," I answered cautiously, bravely trying to dig up some city in which automobiles would be commonplace. "New York City," I blurted out as the name popped into my head.

"Ah!" he said with a knowing wink, "New York is full of these beauties," he said fondly, stroking the wheel like it was a horse. I let it slide. Eventually, we heaved to a stop in front of a foreboding building that could only be a hospital.

"You seem to be feeling a little better, ma'am. Are you sure you want to go inside?"

I struggled to keep from making a face. He made it sound like it was a deathtrap. I shuttered. Maybe it **was** a deathtrap. "I have to go see Edward," I insisted as he helped me clear the door without hitching my skirt on the edges.

"Well, you know best," said the gentleman sadly. "Goodbye Miss Swan," he smiled genteelly.

I stopped short. "How do you know my name?"

He looked surprised. "Why Miss Swan, I'm an acquaintance of your father! Why else would I offer you a ride?"

Half of me mumbled something about "being a nice person." The other half of me realized who the gentleman was. "Of course!" I said with my best airy laugh. "How rude of me to forget you, Mr. Clearwater."

Harry Clearwater gave me his biggest grin. "It's about time, Bella. You were really beginning to worry me there."

I flinched, shaking off the fact I had just talked to a dead man, and ducked inside the strangely dark and airless hospital lobby. Okay, this was definitely a dream. The inside looked just like a documentary I had seen about World War I… perhaps this was the same hospital!

"Hello!" I said quickly to the exhausted looking man at the desk. He held up a file folder. "Checking in?" he asked wearily. I wondered if he had the influenza just by working in the hospital. Just how contagious was it?

The world turned bleary as I struggled to take in another breath. Damn you corset, I thought I got used to you!

"No, I'm here to see… one of the doctors. He's a family friend, and I have a message for him."

The man brightened slightly. _One less death_, I supposed. "Er, who are you trying to reach?"

"Dr. Carlisle Cullen," I responded with confidence.

"Dr. Cullen…" he hesitated, flipping through his paperwork. I gnawed on my lip. "…Dr. Cullen is working Wards D and F. But I would not try to go and see him there," the man warned.

"Why not?" I asked, trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice.

"We have a moniker for each ward here, ma'am. Wards D and F are **Dying and Fatal**, ma'am," he said with a ghastly smile. "They are for those who are going to die and for those who are already dying."

"Oh," I murmured, feeling very small and helpless. _Edward's already too sick for me to do anything._ Then I chided myself, _Like you could do anything anyway. If Carlisle couldn't save Edward, than nobody could._ I grimaced at 'save.'

"Ma'am?" asked the man, snapping me out of my reverie.

"I must go and see Dr. Cullen in person, sir. **Right now**," I insisted. Wow. Chalk one up to bravery, Bella Swan. "So if you'll direct me towards Ward D…"

* * *

It was hot. Unbearably so. And it was at this point I realized that I must be in some kind of long, drawn out, unbelievable nightmare.

Row after row of cots were set up in Ward D. In each cot, a man, woman, or child lay, unmoving. Here, the fever had progressed so that they were comatose quiet. The occasional moan for water or murmurs for a loved one were the only things that broke the agonizing silence.

I considered calling for Carlisle, but somehow any speech above a whisper would be the most mortifying insult to these poor beings.

I wiped sweat off my forehead and blinked away burning tears. If Edward was already- gone- then I could do something to improve the conditions of the dying people. There was a bucket of water in the doorway. It was cold and smelled sweet, and there was a ladle floating inside.

Struggling under the heat and the heaviness of the bucket, at first the task was impossible. But eventually, I grew calm in the monotony of death. One ladleful of water in the glass on the camp stool, which served as a nightstand, one ladleful of water in the basin to refresh the cloths that cooled their burning brows.

I murmured gentle, incoherent things to each person, imagining them to be Edward begging for relief. The children were the hardest- I sobbed openly- but at least their death was swift.

Slosh, slosh, dip the rag, cradle the lips that burned for water. Everyone was Edward.

I had gone through two rows of Ward D, passing the faceless phantom doctors which smiled gratefully at my effort. A few seemed to be carrying out the same task I was.

The room seemed to stretch, then shrink, then change colors. I stopped, dropping the now nearly empty water bucket.

Propped up by several pillows was a woman with glassy green eyes and striking coppery hair. Despite her condemnation to D, she seemed to be actually fighting off the disease. _Elizabeth,_ I thought as I memorized her face. I ventured a guess, feeling suddenly very, very old. "Mrs. Masen?"

The woman stared right through me, cutting me to the soul with her emerald eyes. "Isabella Swan, don't hurt my son!"

"What?" I hissed through cracked lips.

"You're hurting my Edward! You're killing him!" Her words were screeches, but they still had a melodious ring to them.

"How?!" I moaned back, the world twisting sickening. My eyes were aching, my body was burning hot, and my neck screamed indescribably.

"You're giving up," she said smugly, and suddenly it wasn't Elizabeth Masen in that bed but Victoria, her feline face completely content.

"Carlisle!" I shouted, over the sudden moans and thrashes of the dying that I had failed to hear before.

"Bella!" he said in disbelief, spinning on a dime and racing towards me. "Bella, you don't belong here! You don't belong with the dying! You still have time." He was pulling me away, dragging me back away from where I knew Edward to be.

"No!!" I roared back, tearing loose impossibly from his iron vampire grip and flying back towards Edward.

I tore back the curtain that separated the son from his mother. There, finally, was my angel. His head was supported by two poor excuses for pillows, and his breathing was ragged. His face shined with sweat as he lived out his final human hours in catatonia. "Oh, Edward," I groaned, throwing my head on his chest.

I heard the faint, quivering beat of his dying heart, and sobbed brokenly. Unexpectedly, a feeble hand lay on top of my head. I looked up and saw that his unforgettable green eyes were keen and sharp as they stared at me, mirroring my incredulity.

His words were so full of love I nearly choked. "Bella, you must come back to me. You must come back."

* * *

At that moment, I finally woke up. 


	4. Greetings and Salutations

**Author's Note: Sorry, don't own _Twilight_ or _New Moon_.**

_**

* * *

Freesia Juliet**_

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter Four: Greetings and Salutations**

**(Edward's Point of View, overlapping previous chapter)

* * *

**

It had been two agonizing weeks since Victoria's attack on prom night. Every day, I watched her pale face struggle in nightmares I could not soothe away. My poor Bella.

She had to get better. She **had** to. I gripped her hand a little tighter and smoothed down the sheet that covered her quivering body.

_An infection,_ explained Carlisle in his mind to me as he changed the IV drip with a new bag of much stronger antibiotics.

"Bad?" I asked as I watched the vitals chart spew out of the machine in a continuous stream.

"It's high," sighed Carlisle as he tore off another page.

"How high?"

"104.2°"

"Oh," I said with a flinch. "That bad."

Bella whimpered in her night terrors and I pushed her brown curls away from her sallow face. Her closed eyes were sunk in deep into her skull, leaving fragile yellow-green bruises for shadows under each eye. Her breathing was light, but steady, leaving foggy trails on the various tubes hooked up to her nose and mouth.

I was familiar with them all by now- feeding tube, IV, breathing tube, et cetera. I cringed each time the brain monitor recorded a flickering of pain. Her neck was bound inside a mammoth gray plastic brace that hid the gentle contours of her chin and jaw and throat. I hated it.

"We have to go," reminded Alice from the doorway. Reluctantly I turned my head away and looked at my sister. Her face had the same fragile, elfin appearance that Bella did- but Alice always looked that way. Her features had always been too sharp and severe, beautiful but emaciated.

Alice was wearing a black turtleneck and black pants. We matched. Slowly, my mind made the connection that today was the service for Charlie Swan. Last week Forks had buried Charlie with all the honor the chief of police disserved, but his family had been unable to make it in time for the funeral.

Esme had suggested a memorial service for Charlie instead, so Bella's relatives had flown in for today's service. "I don't want to go," I said, protesting dully.

My mother joined my sister in the doorway. Esme's lilting voice was patronizing. "Of course you don't. But look at it this way, Edward: you'll get to meet Bella's family."

"Oh." I blinked, out of habit. "But I don't want to leave her. What if she wakes up?" I asked with anxiety. Panic was beginning to build in my chest at the very thought.

"Two thirty," announced Alice with a blank expression.

"What?" I said, completely taken aback.

"Bella will open her eyes at two thirty this afternoon."

"The service will be well over by then, Edward," added Esme.

"You're sure?" I said. More and more lately I doubt Alice's visions. I glanced at my beloved. She seemed so deep in her coma, and the infection was only getting worse. How could she possibly wake up today?

"Set in stone," said Alice with confidence. "Her fever will break around noon." Carlisle gave a sigh of relief and nodded gratefully to Alice. Well, if Carlisle believed her, who was I to doubt?

* * *

It was held in the basement of the Forks Lutheran Church, where Charlie had been a irregular member. There were a lot of people at the memorial service for Chief Swan, much more than I expected. I sniffed the air inconspicuously. It smelled awful, from one obvious source.

I felt Rosalie stiffen next to me. At the far opposite of the room stood Billy and Jacob, looking properly gloomy. I took a step through the crowd, a low rumble threatening to tear from my throat. Esme intercepted me.

"Remember, they were Charlie's friends, too. Therefore they are our guests," warned my mother in a tone inaudible to a human ear. I backed off, reluctantly.

"Why don't we meet some of Bella's family? You know, introduce yourself as Bella's fiancé, and get a feel for them," suggested Alice beside me.

"Fine," I agreed, taking a good look around.

There was a tall, slender woman staring intently at the enlarged photograph of Bella and Charlie hugging, which sat on a stand as the centerpiece of the service.

I approached her quietly, and stood at her left shoulder, scrutinizing every detail. When Bella said she looked more like Charlie than Renee, she must have meant that she looked like Charlie's **family**. This woman could have been her twin!

It was the same dark, soul filled eyes. It was the same wild bunches of brown curls spilling down her shoulders. It was the same delicate ivory skin. The only difference was this woman was older. Probably as old as thirty-five, though her face was smooth and free of age lines.

"They look good together, don't they?" asked the woman in a low, crooning voice. It was some sort of southern accent.

"Yes," I agreed wholeheartedly. Sure, Charlie hadn't liked me, but for two good reasons. First, no human ever trusted a vampire; it was part of their survival mechanism. No human except for my Bella. Second, I had left Bella crushed and broken for most of her senior year, something I had never intended on doing.

"Were you a friend of Bella's or of Charlie's?" asked the woman with probing dark eyes.

"Bella's," I answered, entranced by her face.

"Were you good friends?" asked the woman sadly. I explored her mind a little, and discovered that she was Bella's aunt, Charlie's younger sister, Abigail Swan.

I smiled in a small way. "Actually, I'm her fiancé."

Bella's aunt was surprised. "Then we better get to know each other, young man," she commanded, sticking out her hand. Surprised myself, I took it gingerly. Abigail had a warm, affectionate grasp. "Cold?" she asked when she felt my icy skin.

"Not really," I responded honestly. Quick to change the subject, I lied convincingly, "You are Bella's Aunt Abigail, correct? Bella's told me all about you. You live somewhere in the south, but I cannot remember where…"

"Georgia," supplied Abigail with a note of pleasure in her voice. "Specifically, in Atlanta."

"You grew up in Forks?"

"Yes, but when I was sixteen I ran away. Couldn't take the closeness of it all. The town's too small for someone like me. I got this romantic notion in my head , probably from reading _Gone With the Wind_ so many times, that Atlanta, Georgia was just the right place for me. So I hitchhiked." She laughed, and it was a pleasant sound. "Turns out Atlanta **was** the right place for me. I've never left."

I looked for Alice, who was chatting respectfully with Renee and Phil. She was keeping time for me. _Eleven thirty,_ she thought-spoke to me. I frowned. Abigail was saying something, and I nearly missed it.

"—how about you?"

I cleared my throat. "I'm so sorry for not introducing myself sooner. I'm Edward Cullen. My family came to Forks two years ago from Alaska, though we've traveled all over the place. That's my adopted mother over there, Esme Cullen," I said with the tiniest gesture politeness would allow.

"You're adopted?" asked Abigail with surprise as something dawned on her. "Oh, how silly of me, Edward. Brad, come over here!" she called quite loudly to get the attention of a lurking teenage boy by the refreshment table. "That's my foster son, Brad Ensworth," Abigail explained.

The boy looked to be about Bella's age, with longish blonde hair and piercing hazel eyes. "Brad, this is Edward Cullen, Isabella's fiancé."

"Hello," responded the suspicious boy with a strong Georgian accent.

A small murmur of jealousy rippled inside of me as I heard Abigail's thoughts before she spoke them. "Technically, Brad is no longer my ward, since he's nineteen now, but he still helps me around in my bakery." That's where Abigail's scent came from- she smelled like flour and fresh cookies. "Isn't it funny? I never adopted Brad legally because Charlie and I always figured Brad and Bella would end up married. She had the biggest crush on him when she was seven…"

I wandered away before her story got the better of me. But I couldn't help staring at her from the other side of the room where I moped with Jasper and Emmett, who had had their Gameboys taken away from them by Rosalie.

"She looks just like Bella would if she got older," observed Jasper.

"**Will**," I corrected, images forming in my mind, "Bella **will** look like her **when **she gets older."

Emmett looked surprised. "I thought you promised to change her after the wedding."

I continued to stare at Bella's look-alike aunt as I answered. "I want her to have a normal life."

"Or at least as normal a life as one can have when one is married to a vampire," pointed out Jasper. I resisted the urge to throw an aluminum folding chair at both of them.

* * *

It was two fifteen by Alice's watch, two seventeen by the clock on the wall. For a minute I contemplated which one would be more accurate in Alice's vision, and decided to go by her watch. "Edward," she said softly.

"What?" I growled as I smoothed the bed sheet for the umpteenth time. The fever had broken. At least one half of Alice's vision had come true now. Could I trust the other half to happen? Bella had never looked to fragile to me as right now, when I waited to see if she would really wake up at two thirty.

"Just ask me already," Alice commanded, saddened by my harsh tone. "You've been sitting on it for the past two weeks. I can feel it."

I blurted it out before I even questioned how she knew. "**Why didn't you warn me that Victoria was going to attack? You had me right there with you, and all** **you did was wish me the best on my marriage!**"

Alice sighed, her face contorting with sorrow as she relived that fateful night in her mind. Through her thoughts, I relived it, too. "I didn't know, Edward. I couldn't have known. The last time I had seen Victoria, she was running up north, being chased out of Denai by Tanya's coven. She must have doubled back south, but she never had any intention of coming back to Forks without at least two more vampires with her. But when I called you back to the house, she must have seen opportunity waiting."

"How did she know that you had called me?"

"It's her power," Alice explained. "She can intercept messages. Even thought-spoke ones. That's how she always eluded the werewolves- she could hear their messages to one another."

I swallowed hard and was about to continue when Emmett and Rosalie burst into Bella's room, their black mourning clothes torn and generally disheveled. Both had the biggest grins I had ever seen a vampire wear. "Got the bitch!" announced Emmett with glee.

I was stunned. After what Alice had just told me about Victoria, I was surprised anyone could ever catch her. "Look at his face," snickered Emmett to his wife. "He looks like he just swallowed a hornet's nest."

"How?"

Alice looked contented. "The third part of my vision came true. The one I was afraid to tell you, Edward. I saw Emmett and Rose take down Victoria for good."

Rosalie explained, "The Quileute dogs had her blocked out of La Push on one side. They couldn't get to her, because she was on our territory, but we could."

"Talk about a celebratory bonfire," smirked Jasper as he joined us. His face was black with ash and soot. "Her fire got a little out of control, so I stayed behind to put it out."

"Of course it did," I sighed, "it **would **be her parting shot at us to burn down the whole forest." My relief was too big for words. At last, Victoria could never hurt my Bella again.

As if on cue, Alice's watch beeped 2:30. We all turned expectantly towards the bed. I held my breath as Bella's eyes slowly slid open.

"Carlisle?" I said nervously.

* * *


	5. Confinement

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter Five: Confinement**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

**

The first thing I heard was the worry in Edward's voice. "Carlisle?" he said, and I breathed out with relief. At that moment I had two thoughts. The first one was _Oh, thank God they found me_. The second one was _Ouch, it really hurts to breathe._

Ouch.

Ouch, everything hurts.

I quickly found that it was impossible to move my head, so I could not turn to the sound of my angel's voice. And more importantly, I could not focus my eyes. A permanent haze had settled on my eyes, and the best I could do was pick out blurry shapes of color. "Bella, can you hear me?" asked Carlisle loudly. A strange light shined in my right eye, then in my right. It blinded me. I shut my eyes.

"Bella, please respond if you can hear me," instructed Carlisle.

I paused, and found that I could move my lips without pain if I moved them slowly. **Very slowly**. "Carlisle?" I said. It came out in an embarrassing slur.

He sighed in relief. I opened my eyes, and found that I could focus them now. Edward's face was there, grotesquely disproportionate. I giggled, watching is big topaz eyes balloon in and out. "Bella?" he said, perhaps questioning my sanity.

"Hello," I said, able to move my mouth a little more. I found that my lips were dried and cracked, and my voice was croaky.

"Oh, thank God Bella!" he said with pure love and joy. I let a tear slip down my face, and he brushed it away.

"Bella." It was Carlisle again. "Bella, honey, I want you to try to move your hand."

It was a simple enough request. I tried to reach for Edward's outstretched hand, and found that my hand was stubbornly still. With frustration, I tried again, and this time I was met with a small success. I could move my fingers. Trying a third time, and exerting myself completely, I forced myself to make contact with Edward's hand.

Exhausted, I clung to his hand feebly. It was like shouting across a long distance. It took several tries to get the message across to my body. Not good. But Edward looked pleased. He chuckled quietly. "It's good to have you back, Bella."

"Good to be back," I said, gaining confidence in the powers of my own voice. "I've spent some time in the land of the dead, and it wasn't very pleasant." Edward, whose face finally came into focus, grimaced.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, hello Alice," I said nonchalantly, despite my heart bursting with delight as I heard her voice. "I had a dream about a hospital…" and I explained everything, except for the part where Edward's mother turned into Victoria.

As I spoke, I began to see that the other Cullens were in the room besides Alice and Carlisle and Edward. There was Esme, smiling in her sad, motherly sort of way. There was Jasper, maintaining his distance as usual but looking genuinely pleased to see me better. There was Rosalie, her smug expression glowing with her fantastic beauty. And finally, there was Emmett, his grin so big it looked like it could fill up the room.

"You got her," I said with as much casualty as I could muster.

Everyone froze. "How did you know?" Jasper asked for all of them.

"I saw her in my dream," I admitted, "and boy was she ever pissed to be there."

Emmett erupted with laughter, breaking the tension.

"Bella needs to rest now," said Carlisle sternly.

"I love you," whispered Edward as he was dragged out of the room by Emmett and Jasper.

"I love you too," I agreed.

* * *

If anyone ever tells you that physical therapy isn't so bad, call them a liar and then shoot them. Or do whatever is possible to make their existence miserable if they cannot be killed by a bullet. Or both, just to relieve the stress.

Last, Carlisle removed the neck brace that had held my spine intact for the past four weeks. He explained that the muscles in my head, neck, and shoulders would be practically atrophied. So I was condemned to more physical exercise than I had ever been forced into in gym class, and now I was even more uncoordinated and slow (if that was possible.)

My mission was finally accomplished. Carlisle and his colleagues had given me permission to go home.

Home.

But Charlie was gone.

This thought had barely registered in my brain. Renee had explained to me that Charlie had been killed in the 'home invasion' that had nearly left me paralyzed.

_Damn Victoria._

_Damn._

_Damn._

_Damn._

_Damn!_

It was impossible. My father couldn't be dead. He couldn't! I hadn't gotten to make him explode yet over my engagement. I hadn't gotten to tell him that I would be with Edward forever, and that there was nothing he could do to stop me. I hadn't gotten to see his beaming face when he finally consented to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day.

It was impossible. It wasn't fair.

I covered my face to hide my tears when Edward peeked his head in with the official leave-the-hospital wheelchair. "Hello," he said cheerfully. His voice was a chorus of seraphim.

"Hello, Edward." My voice cracked. So much for hiding my tears.

He was at my side in an instant. "Are you in pain?" he asked with concern.

"No more than usual," I responded stubbornly.

"Is it anything I can fix?"

"Can you bring people back from the dead?" I choked. He held me tight in those strong arms, so tight my newly mended ribs began to ache. "Easy," I whispered.

He let go immediately. "I'm so sorry!"

"S'okay. Just be careful," I winced.

"I really am sorry about your father. If there was anything I could have done—"

"No, Edward, I know. You were lucky to get** me** out of there alive." I buried my face in his shoulder. His cold hand lay gently on top of my head. My mind flashed to my dream.

_I heard the faint, quivering beat of his dying heart, and sobbed brokenly. Unexpectedly, a feeble hand lay on top of my head. I looked up and saw that his unforgettable green eyes were keen and sharp as they stared at me, mirroring my incredulity._

_His words were so full of love I nearly choked. "Bella, you must come back to me. You must come back."_

"Ready to go home?"

"Yup," I smiled. His strong arms lifted me from the bed and into the wheelchair. I protested, "I can walk, you know."

"I know," he said, wheeling me foreword, "but I like you better this way."

"What way?"

"When I know I can make you safe."

* * *

It was dark by the time we got back to the Cullen mansion. For once in the whole time that I had known him, Edward actually drove at a reasonable speed. Maybe he thought that going his normal speed would hurt me somehow.

Oh, and by reasonable speed, I mean seventy-five.

My eyes widened when I saw the twinkling lights that covered the entranceway to the house. "Edward, are those Christmas lights?"

He was just as confused as I was. "I left Alice and Esme to do the decorating while I went shopping. I guess we're having a Christmas party in late June."

I caught something in his words that I didn't like. "Shopping, Edward?" I accused. "I know and you know that whenever you go shopping, you spend an ostentatious amount of money on me."

He helped me out of the car and supported me with his hand as we walked up the gravel driveway. "Ostentatious, Bella? Is that your new favorite word?"

"You're a poor sport, Edward Cullen," I growled, watching my ring catch the light.

"How am I a poor sport?" he said with mock indignation as he held the door open for me. "You know shopping for you is my favorite game. I always play fair."

"Oh, sure, buying the biggest ring in the State of Washington is playing fair."

"To be honest, I bought it in Switzerland."

"Switzerland?" I gasped. I didn't even notice that Alice had come into the hall to greet us. "I'll never forgive you!"

"And Alice will never forgive you if you don't give her a hug," said Edward perceptively. I gave her a gracious and tearful hug, while sticking my tongue out at Edward.

He laughed all the way into the dining room. "Welcome home, Bella Swan."

* * *


	6. Capture

**Author's Notes: I do not own _Twilight _or _New Moon_.**

**Here I would like to answer a review that struck me as interesting, because this sentiment has been expressed a few times now:**

**theloserhobbs wrote: **_Oh that's so sweet, but I really don't want Bella to leave Edward. _

To be quite honest, I don't think that she would do that in reality.

**Grey Eyed Detective: Well, she has a pretty good reason for leaving him. The first hint will come in this chapter. Stay tuned! wink ;)

* * *

**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter Six: Capture**

**(Bella's Point of View (probably will be BPOV from now on))

* * *

**

"You can't make me," I growled as Alice and Rosalie approached me, brandishing a tape measure. "I will not be a willing hostage!" I shrieked as I raced for the door of the guest bedroom, where I was currently in residence.

"You can't run from us," reminded Alice with placidly as she got ever closer.

I stuck out my tongue. "Vampire!" I gave in and let them catch me.

"So?" smirked Rose as they began a torture fit for the Inquisition. Maybe Carlisle had taught them a few tricks.

Bust size… chest size… waist size… hip size… Rosalie rattled off figures and Alice recorded them. "If we're going to fit you into Esme's old gown, then we need to know what alterations to make," explained Alice sympathetically.

It had been my idea to go see Esme, Rose, and Alice's old wedding gowns. When they showed me the dress Esme had worn to marry Carlisle for the first time, I fell in love.

It was made of delicate ivory lace, carefully trimmed with white satin. Because it was made in the late twenties, it had a high collar, long sleeves, and an outrageously long train. I still flinch just thinking about the damage my inbred klutziness could do to such flimsy material. But Alice and Rosalie were determined that if I liked the dress so much, they could modernize it. With Esme's blessing, they had already begun lowering the neckline, removing the sleeves, and shortening the train. The leftover lace, which had been handmade by Esme's mother, grandmother, aunts, cousins, et cetera, would be saved to accent the bridesmaids' dresses.

All of this work meant me standing for hours as they measured and re-measured me, and carefully fit the pieces to my imperfect human body.

There were other methods of torture they had prepared- flowers and centerpieces and color schemes and guest lists and menus. ("Because you'll certainly want to invite all of your human friends, and they have to eat.")

All I really wanted was to have a quiet little service with my family. But Alice and Rose insisted that they knew best, because they had both had several weddings over the years. Finally, I made up my mind: "Alice? Rosalie?"

"Hmm?" They looked up from the spot at my waist they were pinning.

"I've decided that I want you two to officially plan the wedding, since you're all much more interested in this than I am." Both smiled wickedly. Immediately I wondered if I had made the right decision...

* * *

I blinked, sleepy in Edward's arms. He had 'snuck' into the guest room to sit with me, though I doubt any of the Cullens minded. I yawned quietly and told him about my day. "My cousin Brad called from Atlanta this afternoon." 

He stiffened. I wondered innocently why he had such a strong reaction to that name. After all, Brad was, for all practical purposes, my cousin. "And?" he asked with an irritated tone.

I shrugged. "I invited him to the wedding."

"Oh." His voice was strangely cool.

Something clicked in my head. "You spoke to my Aunt Abigail, didn't you? She was at the service? For—?" My voice stuck, and I couldn't finish my sentence.

Thankfully, he understood. "Uh huh," Edward nodded. "I met her. Nice woman, creepy kid."

I playfully punched him. I doubt he even felt it. "Hey, that's my favorite cousin you're talking about!" I protested.

He rolled on top of me. "Apparently they let cousins marry in Georgia." I blushed, not because of his words, but because I was painfully aware of how close Edward was to me at this moment.

"He's no competition," I assured him, reaching an arm out to run my fingers through his beautiful hair.

"Good," he growled protectively, his eyes bright as he kissed me.

At first it was like all our other kisses. Slow and gentle, just breathing each other's scent. My honey and musk Edward. Then, as usual, I couldn't help myself- I deepened the kiss a little and crossed the first boundary that Edward had set up 'to protect me.' But unlike usual, he did not break away. Perhaps he, too, felt the overwhelming closeness of our wedding day.

Suddenly, the world around me went white and I found myself gasping for air. My heart was going faster than I had ever felt it, and there was a tightness in my chest that I couldn't shake. "Bella?" I heard Edward say with concern as his cold fingers brushed the edges of my face. I could not respond, so I concentrated on breathing.

"Bella!" Edward repeated with a hiss. "Carlisle!" he shouted, his voice echoing throughout the quiet house. For a moment, I thought I saw Carlisle stumble in, half dressed. Maybe I would have been embarrassed if I wasn't so confused. Another seizing pain ripped through my chest…

* * *

"Bella's tachycardia produced an angina," explained Carlisle with a somber and pained face. I looked at him with blank confusion, and sat up a little taller in the hospital bed. He clarified, "Your heart was going so fast that it caused something like a pre-heart attack. Fortunately, there was very little tissue damage, so you'll feel pretty good in a few days." 

"The other doctors were pretty surprised when an eighteen year old came in with an angina. We've never had one so young before." He eyed Edward suspiciously. "Since you're in good health, and your arteries are clear, it must have been triggered by stress."

Emmett snickered. I paled, mortified at what the others must think. "We kissed," growled Edward, shooting death daggers with his eyes at his brother. "That's all." I realized that of all people, this must be hardest on Edward. Who knew that I could have a heart attack just by kissing him!

I blurted out, without thinking (of course), "Does this mean that we can't kiss anymore?" More snickers from Emmett, this time joined by Jasper. Alice looked distressed. Rosalie maintained her usual aloofness, but I could sense she was laughing on the inside.

Carlisle smiled, fatherly. "No more stress for you for a while, young lady, but as long as you keep your heart under control, I think you'll be fine. You're heart may have been damaged by the trauma you experienced a few weeks ago. The timing of the attack was probably just a coincidence."

Emmett could hold back his thoughts no longer. "I never knew you inspired such things in a woman, Edward!" he crowed before ducking out the door and fleeing down the hallway.

Edward's eyes met mine for a moment. I nodded, a smile playing on my lips. He dashed out the door to seek retribution. I laid back, satisfied. Emmett was bigger, but Edward was faster and stronger. He would get his revenge on his brother. I closed my eyes, exhausted.

* * *

**Sorry this chapter was short, but I promise the next one will be longer. Oh, by the way, it's the wedding! Please review so that my inspiration continues!**

**-Grey Eyed Detective**


	7. Bliss

**Author's Note: I do not own _Twilight _or _New Moon_.**

**Thank you to all of you wonderful people who reviewed. You really have made my day. Maybe my life. ;) This chapter is dedicated to my friend Jess, who invented one of Bella's responses to Alice.**

**My song of choice is "Good Enough" by Evanescence's new CD _Open Door_.

* * *

**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter Seven: Bliss**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

**

_Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle Cullen_

_Request the honour of your presence_

_At the marriage of their son,_

_Edward Anthony Masen_

_To_

_Isabella Marie Swan,_

_On the Seventh of July_

_Forks, Washington_

"Easy," I commanded without even the smallest hint of authority. Ever since I had turned the wedding planning completely over to my vampire sisters, Alice and Rosalie, I hadn't had the slightest bit of control over my wedding. For weeks they had fanaticized about having the wedding in Paris, in either the Sacre Cœur or Notre Dame de Paris. I had nixed that plot, pointing out it would be incredibly impractical to fly all of my family and friends to France. (Besides, my French is _très nul_.)

Eventually, Edward and I convinced them that having the wedding in our meadow would be practical **and** romantic, especially since Edward had proposed there last month. It had taken quite a bit of maneuvering by Emmett and Jasper to create a path wide enough for guests, and the solution had involved some rather unorthodox tearing up of trees with bare hands, but Alice had assured me that everything was going to plan.

"**Easy**," I repeated with more impatience as Rosalie pulled my hair out of another curler.

"Hush, Bella," ordered Alice as she practically ripped my hair out on the other side of my head. I was beginning to think they were doing it on purpose. I had already been preparing for an hour, fiddling nervously with note cards as they did my make up. The note cards were inscribed with the vows I had prepared. Alice had taken one look at them and prescribed, "Waterproof mascara." Probably a good idea.

Rose produced a box of hairpins and a canister of hairspray, and I prepared for the worst, squeezing my eyes shut tight. "Baby," muttered Rose, loud enough for me to hear.

I ignored that comment, and focused on not breathing in when the cloud of lavender-scented fumes exploded over my head. A few more sprays, and a lot more bobby pins, and Alice pronounced with scrutiny, "Done." I exhaled with relief.

Next came an equally awful ordeal- putting on the wedding dress. I was certain that, despite their best efforts, my flat bust and shapeless hips would only be accentuated in Esme's delicate and flowing wedding dress. "What's that?" I said with a hiss of despair when Rosalie grinned and tossed an unexpected piece of undergarments at me.

"Bustier," said Rose in a mocking voice.

"Corset," I grumbled, remembering more flashes of my coma-dream.

"It will make the dress fit smoother on you," consoled Alice as she helped me tighten it.

"Not too tight," I warned, "unlike some people, I still have to breathe." I fiddled with a little white bow on the stomacher part of the garment. I sneaked a quick peek in the mirror. Alright, I definitely had hips **and** chest now! Before I could study my hair, which was all up in spiraling curls, Alice dragged me away from the mirror.

After a fight with a stubborn pair of pantyhose, I was finally ready to see my dress. Except, they wouldn't let me. "Close your eyes," bossed Rosalie. I complied, mostly out of instinctive fear of swift and sudden death.

"Lift your right leg," said Alice. I complied. "Your other right," she said with humor.

"Oh."

"Now the left leg."

I felt the crisp, smooth feeling of the silk liner of my dress, the only brand-new part, slide up my legs and stomach.

"Arms." This was Rose. I shot them straight out, feeling very much like a Barbie doll.

"Good," sighed Alice with satisfaction, surveying their work. "Now hold still, Bella, because there are at least two dozen buttons on the back of this thing."

"Thirty four," seconded Rosalie as she quickly added them up.

It took an eternity, as even their graceful vampire fingers slipped up every once and a while on the tiny mother-of-pearl beads.

"One more thing," said Alice. I heard her turn and pull something out of a drawer. I attempted to sneak a second peek, but Rosalie's icy fingers were there in a flash, covering my eyes. "Rose!" said Alice, mortified, "you'll smudge the eye shadow!"

"She was going to look," explained Rose as she removed her hands. "Stop peeking. It will be worth it if you wait." Her voice almost seemed… nice!

I felt cold metal across my bare throat as Alice attached what must have been a necklace. She repeated the process with earrings. "Done yet?" I begged.

"Done."

I opened my eyes, blinked to refocus, and stared into the full length mirror that they had snuck up into Alice's bedroom. I looked…beautiful! The dress was gorgeous- even though it had been modernized, it still retained the antique charm I had fallen in love with. My ears glittered with diamond studs, and around my neck was an expensive diamond choker. "Edward?" I asked, touching my neck carefully, afraid that the woman in the mirror was an illusion.

"Esme and Carlisle, actually," said Alice proudly. "It's their pre-wedding gift. You know, **something new**."

"Oh," I whispered, not knowing what else to say. I had completely forgotten about that- something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

Alice seemed to sense I had forgotten, too. "Don't worry, Bells, I handled everything. That's what a matron of honor/ wedding planner **has **to do."

Rosalie smiled as my flustered face. "You already have something old, the dress, and something new, the necklace. Alice, show her something borrowed."

With a huge grin Alice swung open a large velvet case. Inside was a glittering diamond tiara. My knees went weak. "Where did you ever get that?" I moaned softly. I was going to sparkle like a jewelry store. Good thing it wasn't sunny today.

"Carlisle has a friend in New York who is a president or something in Tiffany's. He—"

"Tiffany's!" I squeaked, interrupting Rose.

"Yeah," she said, as if it was the commonest thing in the world. Maybe if you were insanely rich… _Oh, yeah, they are insanely rich._ "As I was saying, he's a president at Tiffany's, and he said we could borrow this tiara for your wedding."

"Something borrowed. Check," announced Alice as she placed it carefully on my head.

"I'm officially a princess," I announced, feeling rather giddy.

"Or a queen," offered Rosalie. She stroked a strand of her own gorgeous blonde hair back into place. No, Rose was definitely the queen. I was more like archduchess-twice-removed compared to her. "Something blue," reminded Rose gently to Alice.

"Oh," said Alice in a small, shy voice.

"Alice?" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Here," she said, shoving a shiny piece of metal in my hand.

"A shiny bug?" I giggled. Alice relaxed and giggled with me. It was a beautiful dragonfly hairpin made out of white gold and blue stained glass.

"Tuck it behind your ear," Rosalie suggested, helping me. It peeked out inconspicuously.

"Oh, Alice, I love it!" I squealed, hugging her as tight as I could. "Where did you get it?"

She gave a sad smile. "It belonged to my little sister Cynthia. My niece, her daughter, the one that lived in Biloxi… died last week. Cancer, I think."

"Oh Alice!" I said, heartbroken for her.

Alice shrugged. "I guess you get used to family and friends dying when you've lived as long as we have."

Charlie's face appeared in my mind. I shook it off. "But Alice, she was the only family you had left!"

"Not true," said Alice, shaking her head. "I have Jasper, and I have you guys. The Cullens have been my family for as long as I can remember. That's why I want you to wear Cynthia's pin. I bought it at Mary's estate sale."

"Mary?"

"Mary **Alice**. Cynthia named her only daughter after me." Her voice was proud.

Rosalie broke into our reverie. "Come on, Bella, you don't want to be late to your own wedding!"

* * *

All of the guests, and myself, had been transported through the woods in Jeeps that Jasper and Emmett had rented. Sure, it was a bit unusual, but after all, I was marrying a vampire. That would be the sanest thing I would see all day.

There was a big canopy tent behind the "nave," where I hid out as I waited for my cue. "All of life's a stage, and we are but poor players…" I murmured to myself as I paced.

Carlisle snuck under the flap and joined me. For a good thirty seconds he stared at me. "Wow, Bella, you look lovely!"

"Thanks Carlisle." Emmett had had the same stare when he picked me up from the mansion. Hopefully I would have the same effect on Edward. _Speaking of Edward…_ "Is Edward here?" I asked nervously.

"Of course dear," nodded Carlisle.

_Under your spell again_

_I can't say no to you_

_Crave my heart and it's bleeding in your hand_

_I can't say no to you_

I smiled, unsure of myself. I ran through the vows in my head one more time. "Is he as nervous as me?"

"About fifty times more. After all, he's been waiting for this day for ninety years." I gave a guilty smile. "And Jasper and Emmett are teasing him to no end. Emmett has some betting pool going about how long you can take being on the altar with him before you bolt." I swallowed hard. "Of course, my dear, I condone his actions, but I have a pretty penny on you sticking it out to the end."

"How much?"

"Five thousand dollars," Carlisle said with a shrug. I blanched, not sure if it was a vote of confidence or not. If and when I became a vampire, Emmett would be the first one I would knock against a wall. Fanaticizing about pummeling Emmett, I almost missed Carlisle's next words.

"They're starting, Isabella."

_Shouldn't have let you torture me so sweetly_

_Now I can't let go of this dream_

_I can't breathe but I feel_

_Good enough_

_I feel good enough for you_

Alice, Rosalie, Jessica, and Angela were the bridesmaids. They were wearing pale blue silk dresses with sashes made out of the lace leftover from my gown transformation. In their loosely curled hair, they wore yellow rosebuds. It had been a good idea, probably from Alice.

Jasper, Emmett, Mike, and Brad were the groomsmen, Jasper being the best man because Emmett was too busy betting against the wedding. They all wore gray tuxes with pale blue silk vests to match the bridesmaids.

Music started from the orchestra of violins in the corner next to the wedding arch. I gave a gasp of delight when I realized it was a medley of Edward's songs to me. The composition ended with my lullaby. Carlisle extended his arm to me, and I took it, walking in a daze towards my destiny and picturing Charlie at my side.

_Drink up sweet decadence_

_I can't say no to you_

_And I've completely lost myself_

_And I don't mind_

_I can't say no to you_

Renee and Phil were sitting in the front row. I trained my eyes on my mother's tear-filled face. Somehow I couldn't bring myself to meet Edward's overwhelmingly loving gaze. If I did I knew I would bust, and I couldn't afford another heart attack. Especially one right there beneath the wedding arches.

_Shouldn't have let you_

_Conquer me completely_

_Now I can't let go of this dream_

_Can't believe that I feel_

_Good enough_

_I feel good enough_

_It's been such a long time coming,_

_But I feel good_

The minister was a Catholic priest. I was surprised. I had never expected this- Charlie had been a lax Lutheran, Carlisle was some sort of Protestant, and I was basically agnostic. Maybe Alice…? I couldn't seem to focus on his words, though they were beautiful. I finally met Edward's gaze, and he gave me a knowing smile.

_And I'm still waiting for the rain to fall_

_Pour real life down on me_

_Cause I can't hold on to anything this good_

_Enough_

_Am I good enough_

_For you to love me too?_

"Do you have any personal vows to add before we begin?" asked the priest. My mind went blank, but Edward nodded, and launched into the poem we had both memorized.

"**These things I promise I will do,**

**  
That life may grant you ample grace,**

**  
Because I love and cherish you: **

I vow to love each day anew,

**  
For love must dance through time and space:**

**  
These things I promise I will do."**

He hesitated. It suddenly came to me with alarming clarity, and I smiled bravely and finished it for my beloved.

"**I vow to make your terrors few**

**  
And then with you those demons face**

**  
Because I love and cherish you. **

And now, as we make one of two,

**  
A passage we cannot retrace,**

**  
These things I promise I will do**

**  
Because I love and cherish you."**

There were sniffs in the audience. I was surprisingly dry eyed, probably because the whole situation hadn't sunk in yet. The priest murmured the traditional vows, and Edward repeated them: **"I, Edward, take you, Isabella, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life."**

"**I, Isabella, take you, Edward, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life."**

We grinned and said in unison, "**I do.**"

The priest gestured for the rings. Jasper brought them forward. They were matching bands, each with alternating topaz and diamond stones.

Edward held up my ring for me to see. He whispered, for only me to hear, "**Take this ring as a seal upon the marriage vows I have spoken, and as you wear it, may it be a reminder of how much I love you, not only on this precious day, but every single day of your life."** He slipped it on my finger, above my engagement ring. "**With this ring, I thee wed.**"

I began to cry quietly, and had to pause for a moment until Jasper's calming influence surged over me. I held up Edward's ring. **"Edward, with free and unconstrained soul, I give you all I am and all I am to become. Take this ring, and with it my promise of faith, patience, and love, for the rest of my life."** I slipped it on his hand; I noticed his fingers were shaking. So he **was** nervous. **"With this ring, I thee wed."**

"What God has bound together, let no man tear asunder," pronounced the priest, satisfied. "I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Nervous, carefully, Edward crept closer to me and kissed me briefly but completely. My mind burst with stars as his presence finally overwhelmed me. He placed a firm arm on my shoulder as we turned to face our friends and family. Blinded by my tears, all was a blur, except for Edward. My husband. "Ladies and gentlemen, may I be the first to introduce to you, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Masen Cullen!" There were claps and cheers. I think I heard a wolf whistle from Emmett, but I couldn't be too sure. I couldn't see anything.

"Are you okay?" asked Edward in my ear.

_So take care what you ask of me_

_Cause I can't say no_

"Too much happiness," I whispered back, crying fresh tears of overpowering joy.

* * *

"Edward!" I wailed as he smashed the customary piece of cake in my face. "Ooo, I'll get you back!" I promised with a snarl, wiping my face in a futile attempt to remove icing without removing makeup.

"We already took pictures," he laughed, helping me clean cake from Esme's dress. "Sorry I ruined your dress," he said sheepishly.

"You'll have to apologize to your mother, not me," I sighed, bringing my husband in for another kiss. He thoughtfully licked the cake from his lips, taking a tiny taste.

"What does it taste like?" I asked, curious, knowing that human food usually tasted rotten to vampires.

He worded his response carefully. "Actually, not bad, coming from you, Bella. Rather sweet."

"Good," I chuckled, flinging a piece of cake back in his face.

"Should have seen that coming," he grumbled as I snatched a napkin from the table.

* * *

**Post Script: It took me a very, very long time to write this one, so I'm expecting reviews, s'il vous plait!**

**I got all vows from various 'vow' websites.**

**Check out Bella's dress, engagement ring, tiara, choker, and earrings on my bio page.**

**Next chapter will be the last in part one. Stay tuned for part two, _The Queen._**

* * *


	8. Torn

**Thank you so much everyone who has reviewed, especially those who have added _Freesia Juliet_ to their favorites or story alerts. It really shows that you care:)**

**This chapter is the last of Part One, and I'm afraid there will be less fluff and more drama from now on. Then again, if you like drama over fluff, you'll really get into Part Two.

* * *

**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part One: My Ancient, My Only**

**Chapter Eight: Torn**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

**

I closed my eyes and imagined I was anywhere in space or time but in this place, at this moment.

Maybe I could be back at my wedding, dancing nimbly (on Edward's toes) and winking to Mike and Brad, who were doing their best to be a nuisance to Edward. They had spent every other song vying for my hand, and when I granted my favor upon them I laughed silently as I heard Edward growl with jealousy and frustration.

Or I could be on my honeymoon in Greece, where Edward had given me a private tour of the most secluded and beautiful spots in the islands. We paid a man to borrow his cart and donkey, and we languorously climbed up the steep sea bluffs of the west side of some scarcely populated speck of greenery. It was sunny, but since we were entirely by ourselves, I convinced Edward to take off his hat and long-sleeved shirt, and I gaped in quiet wonderment as my husband sparkled in the light. I even convinced him to pose shirtless by the remains of a Doric pillar while I took pictures. To all the world he would look just like a Greek god. No, better than a Greek god, because he was mine.

But I wasn't at my wedding, and I wasn't on my honeymoon anymore. I was here, in this clinical and cold room, awaiting my fate. It was three hours before the door opened and Dr. Anderson returned, a manila folder clutched in her hands. I dropped the ballpoint pen I had been holding. To pass the time, I had been writing my wedding thank-yous; another loose end tied up.

"So?" There was no strength in my voice- I could barely hear it myself.

She sighed and opened the folder. "The tests confirmed my initial diagnosis, Mrs. Cullen."

I winced, and there was a ringing in my ears that I couldn't shake. "What does that mean?"

"The angina you had last month wasn't just a warning that you've been stressing yourself, Mrs. Cullen. It was a symptom of a much bigger problem. How long have you had tachycardia?"

"Two years, maybe? At least, that's how long since I've noticed it prominently."

Dr. Anderson shook her head. "With any other patient I would say you're much too young. But we have irrefutable evidence."

"Could the tests be wrong?"

"We ran them twice, and my diagnosis was confirmed by both cardiologists on staff here Seattle General. And one who treated you at Peninsula Community Hospital agreed that this had crossed his mind."

"So what's wrong with me?" _Please don't tell me, I don't want to know. I want to go home unaware to my husband and ignore the building pain in my chest._

"Acute pulmonary necrosis." My vision blurred a little bit. _Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad,_ sang my mind as I tried not to let my knowledge of biology tell me what that meant. But it slipped in there anyway: severe death of heart tissue.

"So I'm dying," I said, silencing the voices in my head. Suddenly the world was very calm to me, as if she had said, 'It rains quite a bit in Forks.'

"There is one treatment option, Mrs. Cullen. You could have a heart transplant. But you'll have more success if you go down to California or back east than you would here in Washington."

Slowly, I shook my head. I had a second option, one I had been planning for almost two years now. Dr. Anderson protested, "You're very young and otherwise your health is good. Your chances of survival are very high! I don't want you to give up on yourself, Bella."

I was silent, fighting the pain in my chest. So my heart was dying. And all this time I thought it was because Edward was so damn gorgeous. "Do you want me to call someone, Mrs. Cullen? Your husband or a friend?"

"No," I said, shaking the feeling off, "I'm fine to drive home, Dr. Anderson." I stood up and opened the door. "I'll talk to my husband and get back to your office," I promised, lying through my teeth.

* * *

The shock that I was really dying didn't hit me until I was three-fourths of the way home to Forks from Seattle. Thank God I had had enough sense to drive all the way out to the big city, so that Carlisle wouldn't hear the news. I was counting on him not finding out at least until I could figure out what I was going to do.

Six months. A woman of my health and strength could survive six months with pulmonary necrosis.

I missed Edward. Too bad we had had a fight last night, and he wasn't talking to me. What if I just called him on his cell phone and apologized? Explain to him that he **needed** to turn me, now that my life span was down to just six months.

But he wouldn't. After all, that was what our fight was about.

"_You just don't get it," said Edward with frustration, walking faster. I paused, catching my breath against a tree. Lately I had been fighting a severe shortness of breath, and even our little walks were difficult for me. I wondered passively what was wrong with me._

_He waited for me. I gazed resolutely up at him. "I love you, Edward Cullen, and this is the only way I can be with you forever."_

"_A monster? Something not human, that lurks in the dark, waiting to attack unsuspecting innocents." His voice was full of venom. "Why would you want to be like me?"_

"_Because I'm in love with you! Because you're the only thing I have left in the world! I know what I'm getting myself into- I've been head over heals in love with it since that first day at school!"_

"_You have no idea what you'd be getting yourself into," snarled Edward._

_I swallowed, willing my heart to calm down. "You promised," I accused in a small voice._

_He looked pained. "That was before I realized that I could never watch you suffer like I do. I love you too much, Bella."_

Edward wouldn't do it himself, and Carlisle would certainly respect his son's wishes. _I could ask Alice, but she's afraid that she might end up hurting me._ There was one more possibility, and it wasn't a pleasant one.

But it was my only feasible choice.

* * *

The house was empty, which was very unusual for a large family like the Cullens. They were probably all out hunting or something.

I finished packing all the clothes I could fit into one suitcase. Unsure of what to bring, I chose all of the new clothes Alice had recently bought for me. Most of them still had their price tags on. Hopefully they would be appropriate for the task at hand. I locked the suitcase, and began stuffing toiletries into a carry-on bag. Remembering that the airports were very particular about what liquids we could fly with now, I dumped out the shampoo and the hairspray and only took the essentials- toothbrush, hairbrush, lip gloss, iPod, and a battered copy of _Romeo and Juliet_.

I took a hasty look in the mirror. My face was yellow, my eyes deeply shadowed. Well, being a vampire certainly couldn't hurt my looks.

I took painstaking care as I penned out a note to Edward, and then one to Alice. I laid Edward's open on the bed, right next to the completed stack of wedding thank-yous. I had left nothing behind to fret about. Well, nothing insignificant to fret about.

I peeked into Alice's room and dropped the note in an envelope on her dresser. I was running out of time. I could actually feel my vampire family get closer to the house. In a mad, clumsy dash, I raced out the door and threw my bags in the brand new Audi coupe that Edward had bought for me as a wedding present.

Jasper appeared out of the woods, looking quiet and collected. This was the one Cullen I worried about the most, because I knew he could feel my anxiety. "Bella?" he said with mild concern, sensing my emotion.

I put on a chipper face. "Hi, Jasper!"

"You're nervous," he pointed out thoughtfully.

"Yeah," I said, shaking off his words, "I'm a little nervous. I have a surprise for Edward- I'm finally going to check out some colleges. Oh, but don't tell him!" I warned brightly, "Because I didn't want him tagging along and… distracting me." He seemed to be satisfied. _Liar, liar, liar, liar,_ my head screamed.

"Have a good time, Bella. When will you be back?"

I pretended to consider this. "Oh, probably tomorrow if I'm lucky. You know I hate to be away from him."

I popped into the car and turned over the key, listening to the silent purr of the coupe. Sure, I still loved my truck more, but this one was built for agility and speed, and I was in a hurry to get out of Forks.

Before Edward found out the truth.

Before I crushed him like I never thought possible.

I sobbed mercilessly all the way to the Seattle airport.

* * *

**My Ancient, My Only, _fin_.**


	9. Entr'acte

**Author's Note: I don't own _Twilight _or _New Moon._**

**WARNING: The following chapter contains extreme character angst. Be cautioned that the views and fears of any one particular character do not express either the views of the author or the plotline that is to come.**

**Song of Choice: "Snow White Queen" on the Evanescence CD _The Open Door_. I can't help it. The CD is just so appropriate to the storyline. Listening to this song before reading doubles your pleasure.

* * *

**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Nine: Entr'acte**

**(Edward's Point of View)

* * *

**

_Stoplight lock the door_

_Don't look back_

_Undress in the dark_

_And hide from you_

_All of you_

My hands were shaking as I re-read the note for the thousandth time in a span of five minutes.

_**Edward,**_

_**I love you with all my heart.**_

_**I promise I'll come back to you soon.**_

_**Don't try to follow me, please.**_

_**Bella**_

I didn't understand. Was she angry? Was she hurt? Had she been forced to write this by some malicious hand in a cruel attempt to keep me from following?

Ah, yes, the malicious hand of fate.

It was only a matter of time. I had spent a whole month in perpetual bliss, only broken up by the occasional fight over the silliest of things.

Just like newlyweds should. Or so I've been told.

Perhaps she had come to her senses and fled for her life, finally realizing that she had married a monster from the dark whose every longing including tearing her to pieces?

Perhaps she was afraid.

Perhaps she needed to cool off from last night's argument.

Maybe she was hurting.

"Alice?" I asked as my sister stepped into the room. Her face twitched with confusion. "You got a note from Bella, too?"

"Yes," she said, and there was the pain in that one word that I had pushed back from my heart until now. It was wrenching pain. I fought the urge to double over.

_You never know the way_

_Your words have haunted me_

_I can't believe you'd ask these things of me_

_You don't know me_

"Where is she?" I asked desperately. "Is she safe?"

"I can't…" said Alice with mortification. "I can't see her, Edward! It's like she's dropped off the face of the earth!"

I heard a flickering voice in my head. "Jasper saw her go,' I said briefly as we both tumbled down the stairs after her husband.

"Jasper," I hissed, beating Alice by full bound. "You saw Bella?"

He looked surprised and overwhelmed by the anxiety and pain we both were emitting. "Yeah, what's wrong? I saw her leave in the Audi around three o'clock. She said she was…" He trailed off. I pressed him with my eyes.

"What?!"

"She said she was going to visit colleges. She told me not to tell you because she didn't want you to 'distract'—" It finally sunk in. "She ran, didn't she?"

_You belong to me_

_My snow white queen_

_There's no where to run, so let's just get it over_

_Soon I know you'll see_

_You're just like me_

_Don't scream anymore my love_

_Cause all I want is you_

* * *

Two days. Three days. Where the hell was Bella? How could anyone, especially a human, disappear off the face of the map? I allowed my anger to surge through, because it was less painful than the agony I faced in the dark. It wasn't right. Nothing was right.

Alice was sullen, pacing her room and gritting her teeth. The only thing Alice couldn't 'see' was a werewolf, and we both seriously doubted Bella had become one. So why was her future a blank slate? Why couldn't Alice see my wife's movements the moment she decided to make them?

Had she suddenly developed the ability to block Alice's power? _Impossible. Unlikely… Maybe… No!_ I decided. Even if she could suddenly block Alice's power to see the future, why would she? Unless… Unless she wanted to stay hidden.

_Wake up in a dream_

_Frozen fear_

_All your hands on me_

_I can't scream_

_I can't escape the twisted way you think of me_

_I feel you in my dreams and I don't sleep_

"Anything?" I heard Carlisle say in a frustrated voice as I stumbled down the stairs, feeling more and more like a robot with each passing minute she was gone. Or maybe a zombie. They were walking dead, just like we were…

"I can't find anything," said Emmett with equal frustration, his usually playful face contorted with irritation and confusion. I stopped on the stairs, frozen in place, listening to their conversation. When my own thoughts ended, swarms of voices pounded my skull because I did not have the strength to fight them back.

_Why doesn't he call me? We haven't spoken since our date on Friday. Maybe he doesn't love me after all._

_Poor Edward. He must just be torn up inside._

_Damn summer reading. Who wants to read "Romeo and Juliet" anyway?_

_I can't believe she'd just leave._

_I can't believe I didn't stop her._

_I wonder if this skirt goes with Ashley's yellow top._

_I'm lost. Stupid, worthless compass._

_He got us lost. Idiot!_

_I wonder how he feels! I wonder how I would feel if Emmett left me._

It took a surge of emotion to silence them. I needed to hear Emmett, and Emmett alone.

"I've went through all the usual mediums. Bus, train, plane… I've looked under 'Bella Cullen' and 'Bella Swan,' but no tickets under her name since last month, from the honeymoon. The credit card we gave her is completely untouched." He stood up and turned the laptop to that Carlisle could see the screen. "The only thing I know is that Bella cleared out her bank account at one thirty, an hour and a half before Jasper saw her leave the house. It wasn't a lot of money- only three thousand dollars."

Emmett dug through his pocket and produced a ticket stub. "Oh, but she probably has more cash than that, because she pawned her **engagement ring**."

Had I still had a beating heart, it would have exploded at that moment. I collapsed on the stairs, choking back something between a sob and a roar. _I'm actually coming unglued_, I thought with surprise before the white enveloped my vision. I couldn't see. I wondered for a moment if a vampire could die of shock.

Everything was white and peaceful. However, I could still hear. "Edward!" shouted Carlisle. I think I had fallen down the stairs, but I couldn't feel it.

"I got it back for you," assured Emmett with desperation.

_I can't save your life_

_Though nothing I bleed for is more tormenting_

_I'm losing my mind and you just stand_

_There and stare as my world divides_

She wanted to leave. She wanted to leave me like this, shattered, broken forever on the bottom of the stairs. She had thrown everything in her mad dash to escape this horror that I was permanently entrapped within.

I began to understand a little how she had felt when I had left her. I began to realize what a broken promise could do to a person.

I promised to give her immortality, after our wedding.

I betrayed her.

She promised to stay with me and love me for all of her days.

She smashed me to smithereens.

_You belong to me_

_My snow white queen_

_There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over_

_Soon I know you'll see_

_You're just like me_

_Don't scream anymore my love,_

_Cause all I want it you_

"Bella," I muttered, sinking into the deepest depression I'd ever faced.

* * *

**P.S. Author's notes: Pulmonary necrosis is a fatal condition in which the cells of the heart tissue decay at a rapid rate. It can be triggered by a heart attack, or in Bella's case, bad genes. Often it leads to a second heart attack or coronary heart failure. I was asked, so I explained.**

**Please don't take this chapter too harshly. It's basically a filler chapter, but I wanted you to see Edward's reaction to Bella's leaving before I get into the meat of Part Two, which may not feature Edward's POV at all.**


	10. Prelude

**Author's Note: I do not own _Twilight_ or _New Moon_. Unfortunately.**

**Oh, my poor muses are running low on fuel. Lucky for me, I have a wonderful bunch of reviewers that perk 'em right back up. Thanks you guys! ;)**

**Sorry, I can only do one chapter tonight, because I have important stuff on Wednesdays, so I'll make this one a good one!

* * *

**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Ten: Prelude**

**(Bella's Point of View)**

I discovered that running was perhaps the best distraction I could have ever created for myself. So that I didn't have to think about what I was running from. So that I didn't have to think about why I was running. So that I didn't have to think about what I was running **to**.

I was currently, for lack of a better work, moping in a hotel room in Rome. I missed my engagement ring. I missed Edward. I hated what I was doing. _But it's the only way._

Well, there was one more way. I could slowly die in front of Edward until my heart was too weak to even take the 'change.' But I was certainly wasn't for that notion.

I spoke no Italian. Notta. Zilch. Zero. This would have proven a problem, except that I found a nice young concierge who spoke excellent English, and had proved an invaluable resource. He had helped me gather the essentials I was forbidden to take on a plane- shampoo, mousse, toothpaste, lotion, and a few more personal toiletries. Ezechiele had also helped me rent a car and locate directions to Volterra. As he taught me a crash course in Italian, enough for me to get buy in a store full of reasonably tolerant people, I wondered if all Italians were that helpful.

_No_, I realized, _no they aren't_, thinking about three particularly unpleasant Italians.

I showered and blow-dried my hair with my round brush to produce large, loose curls. I fished through my suitcase of clothes and chose brown pants, a pink camisole, and an olive jacket. I then I put on the new earrings, sunglasses, and stiletto heels I had bought at the airport's duty-free stores. They were still very expensive, but I was trying to 'dress for success,' figuratively. I was trying to be the confident, powerful woman on the outside that I was not on the inside.

Ezechiele had rented me a white convertible, a Lamborghini something or other. Instantly, I hated it. Mostly because it represented the money and influence I was dreading. "Ciao, Ezechiele," I giggled, in spite of my mood. After so many years of Spanish, Italian was a pleasant change.

* * *

I zipped through the beautiful Mediterranean countryside, enjoying the wind in my tangled hair. Driving, just like walking, in stilettos, I had overcome with practice. Italy reminded me strongly of Greece.

Greece reminded me of Edward.

But enough of that. I was approaching the gates of the walled city of Volterra before I knew it. Immediately I wished I had driven a little slower and enjoyed Italy a little more. Who knew how this would turn out?

There were droves of people in the city square, and for a moment of horror I thought I had stumbled on St. Marcus Day again. But no, it was just market day. I could tell by the raw smell of animals and the impatient voices of haggling women. _It's just like in the movies,_ I thought with another giggle. Italy was doing a lot to boost my spirits, even if this was Volterra, city of nightmares.

I parked the convertible in the designated lot and checked my hair in the mirror. It was all over the place. So much for confident and powerful woman. I opened the driver's-side door, and almost broke my ankle on a cobblestone. Was it possible that my Italian fantasies about women strutting around in high heels were false? I looked around, and spotted at least a half a dozen doe-eyed beauties hanging on the arms of brawny gentlemen. All of them wore shoes as high as or higher than mine. _Okay, so they just have better balance than I do_, I concluded with a wince.

_You're not here to sight-see, Bella,_ I reminded myself.

_Find a vampire. Sure, that'll be easy_, I thought bitterly as my eyes poured through a crowd of at least a thousand people. But I did have several advantages that other humans would not have, were they ever so stupid to go seek out the Volturi.

First, it was sunny. Therefore, any vampires out would be fully covered, despite the intense heat of an August day. Second of all, they would not be looking to shop, but rather to watch people, especially tourists, since residents were off limits. _Grocery shopping,_ I thought with disgust. Third, I could smell a vampire with reasonable accuracy.

Thinking that the third option might be the best way to sort out people from vampires, I closed my eyes, leaned back on the convertible, and inhaled, trying to sift out the scents of people and animals and food, which coated the air like an aromatic blanket. At first this task seemed impossible, but gradually I picked up an unusual smell, like dead leaves and molasses. It was the unmistakable scent of one of the Volturi vamp-guard. In fact, all the Volturi smelled like that. Maybe they had a special cologne or something.

It was somewhere to my far left. I opened my eyes and marched with exuberant confidence towards my 'prey.' There he was. A tall, overly thin man with a black, long-sleeve hoodie on. I guess they only wore capes in private. "Hello," I said in an even tone.

I was surprised that my heart didn't beat out of control. Maybe Edward was right. Maybe I **was** too comfortable with vampires. He seemed to smile under that dark hood of his. I could tell what he was thinking: _An American. Fair game._

"Siete persi?" '**Are you lost?'** His voice held a great deal of cynicism at my simplicity.

"No, non sono. I signori di Volterra stanno prevedendolo." I answered back in my best Italian. He looked surprised, not because I spoke Italian, but because I knew about Aro, Cais, and Marcus. '**No, I am not. The lords of Volterra are expecting me.'**

"Prevederli?" '**Expecting you?'** he repeated.

"Sì," I said with my best irritated-princess voice.

"Le mie scuse... signora?" '**My apologies… madam?'**

"Sig.ra Cullen." '**Mrs. Cullen.'**

"Ora li prenderò," he said with a surprised face. '**I will take you now.'** I guess he connected the name to Carlisle. He began to walk silently towards what I knew to be the underground entrance to the Volturi compound.

Fearing breaking my neck in the jump, I quickly corrected. "No. Il portello anteriore."

'**The front door.'** He nodded and guided me a different way, towards the frosted glass of the front office of the 'department of vampire sovereignty.'

* * *

I swallowed hard. The white haired ancient stared at me, surprised beyond words. My body was urging me to make a run for it, but my mind was frozen with fear. "Signora Cullen," he said at last, he fluid voice filled with humor, "What can I do for you?"

* * *

**P.S. Author's Note: _Pardone_ my misuse of the Italian language, I probably chop-shopped it. I speak two languages fluently, and Italian isn't either of them. If any of you are Italian speakers and are offended beyond belief by my translations, please let me know so that I might correct them. But only serious errors, because like I said, Bella's knowledge of Italian was zilch until Ezechiele (EzechieleEzekiel) came along. Please review:)**


	11. Scream

**Author's Note: I do not own _Twilight_ or _New Moon_.**

**Thank you all so much for the reviews, especially in chapter 9. Apparently it was better than I thought! ;) There was some mild confusion in one of the reviews, which I would like to address now. _No, Bella is not a vampire_. Yet.**

**Song of Choice: "All That I'm Living For" by Evanescence on _The Open Door_

* * *

**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Eleven: Scream**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

I swallowed hard. The white haired ancient stared at me, surprised beyond words. My body was urging me to make a run for it, but my mind was frozen with fear. "Signora Cullen," he said at last, he fluid voice filled with humor, "What can I do for you?"**

I tried to keep my eyes locked on his burgundy ones, and I had to literally struggle to do this, planting my feet hard on the marble. "I congratulate you on your wedding, Isabella; I'm afraid I heard about it so late that I couldn't send a wedding present. Did you have a pleasant honeymoon?" His voice was civil. Well, I could handle that.

"Yes," I said, standing tall, as the wife of the most wonderful being on the planet should, "we took a trip to Greece. It was lovely."

"So close to Italy!" laughed Aro, gesturing that I should take a seat beside him one of the oversized armchairs in his personal study. "You should have come for a visit!"

"I'm afraid Edward was against it," I said lightly, sinking into the chair with relief. My feet and neck ached uncontrollably. Just another thing I wouldn't miss when I became a vampire. He laughed again, apparently very pleased to see me.

"Did you see Crete?" he asked, as though we were two old friends.

"Yes," I nodded, not letting my guard down. "The legends associated with that island were particularly fascinating."

Aro smiled smugly. "I'm surprised that Edward has not told you of our species personal connection with Greece."

I thought for a moment. "No, he has not told me anything of a vampire connection to Greece." I bit my lip. Now the word was out in the open, and there was no more use playing this little game Aro seemed determined to enjoy.

"Another time, my dear," Aro dismissed, recognizing my true purpose. He stretched a little. "So, why have you really come, Signora Cullen?"

I chose my words carefully. "Edward has failed to keep our half of the bargain we made with you a few months ago."

"Ah," said Aro thoughtfully, his dangerous eyes glinting. "But we did say he had a year."

I pressed, my stomach tying into knots. "I don't have a year, signori." There was a lump in my throat that I couldn't get rid of.

"So you have more selfish reasons to come to me, Isabella. That sounds more reasonable, my dear. You are sick?"

"My heart is dying, Signori Aro," I said with bitterness.

"And Edward will not turn you." This was not a question, but a statement. He had known immediately that Edward would never change me, although I had not known. I recalled that Aro's power enabled him to read every thought a person had ever had just by touching.

"Yes." It was unnecessary.

"So you want us to turn you."

"Yes." I was surprised that I spoke this with no hesitation.

"Are you sure that you want us to do this?" asked Aro generously. "You still have time for Edward to do it."

His benevolence only added to my resolve. "I came to you because I want this from you," I said firmly.

His eyes glowed. "Tomorrow, then, my dear. I'm sure that you're tired now, and could probably use some dinner and a bubble bath." His ancient, deadly face smiled slightly, as if he was picturing what life was life for him before he was a vampire.

Edward had said that the Volturi were over three thousand years old. I wondered if he could remember human life at all. Would that be me? Would I forget Charlie and Renee, and Mike and Jess and Angela so very easily? I vowed that this would never happen to me.

I would be a vampire, but in identity alone. I would still always be human at heart.

_All that I'm living for_

_All that I'm dying for_

_All that I can't ignore alone at night_

So engrossed in my thought, I barely realized that Aro's servant had brought me to a lushly furnished set of apartments deep within the Volturi compound. The windows were enchanting stained glass, and the drapes and bedspread were wine-colored. I saw that two of the antechambers were a bathroom and a dining room. Clearly, this room had been designed for human, rather than vampire, occupancy.

"Is something wrong, signora?" asked a beautiful voice.

"Oh!" I said with a start, "I forgot you were there," I explained to the servant. I took a real look at her for the first time.

If Rosalie was a goddess, this girl was a cherub. Her youthful face was framed by short blonde ringlets, and her eyes were impossibly blue. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn she was human. Her face even had a delightful pink tinge to it.

"What are you?" I said, unable to stop myself.

"I'm half-vampire," she confessed. I was immediately confused. How was it possible to be half-vampire?! Everything I knew about vampires screamed that it was impossible for them to have children.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Octavia," she explained, "daughter of Octavian Caesar and his vampire mistress, Elixa."

"Wow," I hissed, immediately impressed by her words. "Your father was the first Emperor of Rome? Then how did you end up serving Aro?"

"I can't properly explain until the Volturi share their story with you," Octavia said sadly, "But I can say that my mother was a slave, and so I was born into slavery."

"Couldn't you leave?" I couldn't help but asking.

"I don't want to," she confessed. "I am safe and happy in Volterra, just as I have been since I was born." I couldn't wrap my mind around nineteen thousand years of servitude. Hell, I couldn't even wrap my mind around nineteen.

"Come now, Signora Cullen, there is a bath prepared for you, and a lamb dinner in the dining room waiting. If you should need anything, just call my name." She vanished in front of my eyes.

* * *

The bath soothed muscles I didn't even know had tightened. It smelled of chamomile and lavender, and I was instantly sleepy. I dried my hair and pulled on the bathrobe handing on the back of the door. It fit perfectly, but I almost flung it away when I saw it was monogrammed 'I.M.C.'

Having eaten a fantastic dinner of minted lamb with chardonnay, I climbed into the oversized bed and fell instantly asleep, completely comfortable.

However, my dreams were less than comfortable.

_I can feel the night beginning_

_Separate me from the living_

_Understanding me_

_After all I've seen_

_Piecing every though together_

_Find the words to make me better_

_If I only know how to pull myself apart_

I woke screaming to Octavia's concerned face. I gave an incoherent shout and tumbled out the other side of the bed. "I'm sorry, Signora Cullen," she apologized, helping me up. "I've had orders to wake you. You have an important morning. But apparently, you woke yourself."

Feeling my heart pound from my nightmare, I protested weakly as Octavia dressed me in a floor-length, powder blue, spaghetti-strapped gown. She was much too strong for me to fight off, so I gave in and let her comb through all the tangles in my frizzing brown hair.

"I want you to know that I'll be there to help you… after," assured Octavia in a small voice. "I've seen a few of these before, and I know how painful they must be." I recalled that she had been born a vampire, and had never had to go through this.

I missed Edward.

I really missed Edward.

He understood what I was about to go through.

* * *

_I believe that dreams are sacred_

_Take my darkest fears and play them_

_Like a lullaby_

_Like a reason why_

_Like a play of my obsessions_

_Make me understand the lesson_

_So I'll find myself_

_So I won't be lost again._

"Now Bella," breathed Aro, his eyes black with anticipation, "you understand the pain of transformation."

"Yes," I breathed, my hands balled into fists. My arms were spread wide, with each hand handcuffed to the wall. Aro and Caius had explained that this was to keep me from hurting myself while my body fought the venom. Volturi venom was twice as potent as a regular vampire, so the change would take place in about a day and a half rather than three days, but this meant it was twice as painful.

"Good luck, Isabella," Aro breathed before his face dove toward my neck. I shut my eyes as the flesh on my neck exploded with pain. My involuntary screams pierced the silence of the small chamber as Aro pulled away, shaking as he released reluctantly. My mind morbidly wondered if my blood tasted as good as Edward always swore it smell.

Then all sense dissolved into a pool of fire as the venom raced through my veins.

_Guess I thought I'd have to change the world_

_To make you see me_

_To be the one_

_I could have run forever_

_But how far would I have come_

_Without mourning your love?_

My swollen eyes cracked open, and my lips begged for water as Octavia approached, clutching a wet rag in her eternally icy fingers. I pulled my head up to meet her, and she wiped my mouth and face gently. The water literally evaporated off of my boiling face, and she repeated the process over and over again.

_Oh, God, Edward stop the fire,_ I thought desperately as I tugged at the handcuffs that bound me to the wall. I couldn't break free. I couldn't escape the fire that consumed my veins. _Edward, I love you. I'm doing this for you._

"Hold on, signora," urged Octavia, her strange blue eyes watering through my vision.

There was a new pain; I hadn't thought there could be a pain more intense than the all-consuming flames. But there it was, and suddenly I was tearing apart. I actually heard my heart beat out of control, and my body plunged into blissful numbness.

_Too early,_ I noted with despair as my spirit was ripped from my body. It was cool and painless.

For a minute or two, I hovered lackadaisically outside of my dead body, noting passively that my heart had given out before the venom could reach it.

_All that I'm living for_

_All that I'm dying for_

_All that I can't ignore alone at night_

_All that I'm wanted for_

_Although I wanted more_

_Lock the last open door-_

_My ghosts are gaining on me._


	12. Me

**Author's Note: I do not own _Twilight _or _New Moon._ That's just my fantasy.**

**I've noted some people are very concerned that my story might be drawing to a close. Don't worry, there is still lots more story to come. I won't leave you hanging.**

**I'd like to know what you all think of the official _Freesia Juliet_ title image. You can find the link on my fanfiction homepage under _"Freesia Juliet Pictures."_**

**Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews you've all given this story already. Please continue to support me, your local starving-for-reviews artist.**

**And now, on to the good stuff…

* * *

**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Twelve: Me**

**(Bella's Point of View)

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**

There was a new pain; I hadn't thought there could be a pain more intense than the all-consuming flames. But there it was, and suddenly I was tearing apart. I actually heard my heart beat out of control, and my body plunged into blissful numbness.

_Too early,_ I noted with despair as my spirit was ripped from my body. It was cool and painless.

For a minute or two, I hovered lackadaisically outside of my dead body, noting passively that my heart had given out before the venom could reach it.

_I wonder if I'm dead._

_I wonder if I can go back._

_I wonder if I can stay like this forever._

There was a buzzing sound in my ears. It formed an urgent hum, and then shaped itself into a voice.

"Bella, you need to come back." The dream-world collapsed on itself, crushing my chest with painful blows. The light came back, and I shied away from it, but still the voice pushed me forward, and the tightness overwhelmed me. "Bella, you need to come back."

I mutated back into a solid as my body swallowed my soul. "Edward," I moaned as the fiery pain came back and my body gave a nauseating lurch.

"I was afraid we'd lost you, Isabella," scolded Marcus gently. My heart was unwilling to play the part, and it gave another shutter. The world sank and spun.

"Hang in there, Bella," pleaded Edward's heavenly voice.

"I'm still here," I promised with a croak, practically oblivious to the soothing hands of Octavia and the gentle words of Marcus.

The venom finally hit my heart.

I think it might have exploded.

Suddenly the pain pulled away, as if it had never been there. I found my feet and hauled my sagging body upright. I gave my arms a slight jerk, and the handcuffs snapped off my wrists.

My body was drenched in sweat, and there was sticky wetness in my hair where I had slammed my head against the wall until old scars ripped and bled.

I felt for the slash gingerly. There wasn't one. It had already healed.

I was exhausted, and then confused. I was sure that vampires never felt physical fatigue; after all, they didn't sleep. "How do you feel, Isabella?" asked Marcus with a welcoming smile.

"I could use a bath,' I admitted ruefully. He laughed.

"Octavia, will you escort Isabella back to her chambers and help her freshen up?"

* * *

As I lounged in the steaming hot water, which was quickly cooling from the icy influence of my body, I had time to muse over my transformation. I hadn't dared to look in the mirror yet, but I allowed myself to admire the distorted reflection off the tap. _I'm still the same old Bella,_ I reminded myself.

Except for the fact that my curves had changed. Most noticeably, I **had** curves. I hadn't helped but notice that.

The scars on my knees were gone. They had been from learning to ride a bike under Renee's rather poor supervision. She aught to have known I had no balance.

I could feel that the scar on my forehead was gone. This made me think of my beautiful motorcycle, tucked into the garage at Charlie's. Then I thought of Jacob, and what had once been my heart sighed with disappointment. _The whole 'mortal enemies' thing will probably keep me from ever speaking to him again. Where am I going to find a new best friend?_ I thought idly.

The exhaustion was beginning to catch up on me. I closed my eyes and let my head sink under the water. There was no fear there, only intense calmness.

The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes under water which was no longer mounded with foamy bubbles. I pulled up, surprised, and saw that the candles that lit the room had long since burned out.

I dried off and flung my bathrobe back on. Flying out of the bathroom, I shouted, "Octavia!"

She was instantly at my side, her face in an innocent smile. "Do you need my help, Signora Cullen?"

"Yes, I think," I said with bewilderment. "I fell asleep."

Octavia nodded. "I felt it would be a shame to wake you, so I left you there."

I was dumbfounded. "Octavia, vampires **don't sleep**."

"Yes, normal vampires don't sleep. But you aren't a normal vampire, Signora Cullen," she said, as if she was trying to explain something to a three year old.

Compared to her age, she probably thought I **was** a three year old. Especially since she was so intent on dressing me. I slipped into a knee-length, strapless blue dress as she blow-dried my hair straight. A million questions danced on my tongue, but I withheld them, knowing that the Volturi would be more willing to answer me.

I forced myself in front of a mirror and stared intently at the stranger staring back at me.

My cheekbones were higher, and my eyes deeper set beneath pale purple shadows. My eyes were a frightening shade of crimson. There was absolutely no color in my face except for the thick black eyelashes and jutting, narrow black eyebrows.

My hair was… surprising. It was super glossy, and was darker than it had been, almost black. But the most surprising thing was a streak of silver that ran down my long bangs on the left side of my face. I touched it with curiosity, and asked, "Where did this come from."

Octavia frowned. "We can't really explain it, signora. It just appeared when your heart stopped. Perhaps the stress was a bit too much."

I smiled, touching the white perfection of my face, noting that every blemish had vanished. "A bit too much, Octavia? I was dead for five minutes!"

* * *

"You look… absolutely stunning, Isabella," said Caius with a knowing smile.

"If there were any doubts before, there aren't any now," added Marcus.

Aro looked offended. "You doubted me, brothers? I told you she would be the next one, and she certainly is. You can feel it radiate off her skin!"

"I'm the next what?" I said with confusion, my red eyes flitting from person to person.

"You're the next Volturi Queen, my dear," said Caius, as though it was obvious. "Oh, my Jane will be so disappointed. They only show up once every few centuries, you know, and she really hoped that she might eventually manifest the signs."

I backed away, horrified. "No, no, no. I'm not one of you. I'm not any kind of queen," I protested, wondering if I could outrun them. And the whole Volturi Guard. I decided not.

"Of course you are, Isabella," said Marcus. "We could tell from the moment we met you last March. But your falling asleep… only confirmed it."

"You know?" I said, mildly aghast.

"All queens of Volterra have the ability to sleep, Isabella," explained Olivia, piping up for the first time. "In fact, they have to sleep every four days; else they will lose their gifts."

"It's one of the few downsides of being a vampire queen," sighed Aro, taking my hand and leading me from the rest. "But there are many upsides. For one thing, you will have two gifts- one unique to you alone, and one that all queens have."

"What is the gift all queens have?" I asked in spite of myself.

"They have the ability to have children, Isabella. With some conditions, of course," prattled on Aro, unaware that he had shocked me speechless.

_I can have children._

_Edward and I can actually have a family._

_Oh my God._

Aro took a key from his jacket pocket and unlocked a set of heavy double doors. "Welcome to your destiny, Isabella Cullen."

"What is this place?"

* * *


	13. Dynasty

**Author's Note: I don't own _Twilight_ or _New Moon_, especially since I'm not Stephanie Meyer.**

**A few of you might be a little discontented about the last chapter, thinking to yourself that it wasn't 'unique.' But the difference between this story and other stories is that Bella can have a baby, which makes her invaluable to the Volturi, rather than she will have a baby (which she probably won't). The difference will seem clearer to you after this chapter.**

**As always… Read and Review!

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**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Thirteen: Dynasty**

**(Bella's Point of View)

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**

"What is this place?" I said, my voice ringing with awe.

"The Hall of Queens," responded Aro with equal reverence. It was a wide hall with a vaulted ceiling of black marble. There were four filled alcoves- the fifth one was conspicuously empty.

Aro wandered to the first alcove, his eyes hypnotized by the statue that stood smugly within. It was life-size, made of purest white marble. It was a woman, who looked surprisingly familiar to me. Dressed in a knee length, gauzy looking dress, the woman pouted seductively, leaning forward enticingly. Her perfectly carved hair curled life-like just below her ears. There was a large, fantastically detailed painting of the same woman behind the statue. It revealed that she was white-blonde, wearing a gossamer Roman tunic-dress.

"Who is she?" I asked, feeling like I already knew.

"Elixa," said Aro fondly, "my baby sister." What had been vaguely pressing my mind hit me with full force. This was Octavia's mother. And if Elixa was Aro's sister, then Octavia was his niece. No wonder she stayed with the Volturi. She **was** a Volturi.

The next alcove had an equally impressive statue of a Middle Eastern looking woman in a strange robe of gold. "Rebekkah," explained Aro, "Caius's mother. Her father was an Ethiopian slave trader, who sold his own daughter to a vampire who recognized her potential." I cringed slightly, unable to comprehend that kind of travesty. Then it hit me, like a cold slap in the face.

Aro, Marcus, Caius, and Octavia had been born vampires. No wonder they felt no remorse when they slaughtered visitors on St. Marcus Day. They had never known the kind of life Edward had wanted me to keep.

The third alcove was an Italian woman with "doe eyes" and a loving smile. I liked her the best immediately, because she looked almost human. I reached out and touched the marble that composed her silky black locks. "Genevieve, Marcus's mother," said Aro in a voice that rang with pity. "She was the last Etruscan princess before their capital city, Rome, fell to the Latins."

I could only imagine that we were coming to Aro's mother. For some reason, I anticipated her face the most. After all, I knew now the appearances of both her offspring, Aro and Elixa.

I was not disappointed.

The placard at the base of the painting read simply, "Claire." She was not impressively tall, or shockingly exotic. In fact, I recognized that she was Greek, with silvery-blond hair piled up in curls in the true Hellenic fashion. The thing that struck me the most was that her eyes in the painting were the same crimson of a fresh vampire.

"She was too young," said Aro sadly, "and she had the fiercest temper a woman ever had. She never could control herself." Beneath the sadness, there was an intense love. I guess even a being like Aro could love his mother.

"What happened to her?" I couldn't help but ask.

He sighed. "She and Elixa were both killed when coven of Gaul vampires raided Rome in 1011. Caius, Marcus, Jane and I were off on business in China, and Octavia wasn't strong enough to help them. That's why they let her live."

"And Rebekkah and Genevieve? What happened to them?"

"Rebekkah runs a school for girls in Egypt. Genevieve owns a castle in Switzerland."

I pictured myself, just for the briefest moment, as one of these immortalized women, a marble statue in an ethereal hall. Something nagged at the back of my mind, and I knew that I needed to ask it before I got too deeply involved in this fantasy. "What's the catch?"

"Catch?" repeated Aro, his ruby eyes narrowing to pinpoints of light. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, my dear."

I had a pretty good feeling that he did. "You said there were 'conditions' that I would have to face, Aro." My voice tightened, and it was deadly serious.

He sighed. "Very astute of you, Isabella." My whole body stiffened with anticipation. "It's a trivial thing, really."

"Tell me." My voice hardened.

"The number of children you can produce depends on the number of times you feed."

"On humans?" I couldn't believe my ears. This was the worse case scenario doubled over.

"On humans," Aro agreed, saying it as though it was normalcy, "within your first year as a vampire."

A mixture of rage, fear, horror, and disgust slammed through my entire system. _I have to get out of here. There's no way they can make me attack a human!_ my whole being screamed.

I tried my best not to reveal my horror, but I found this nearly impossible. "Isabella, are you alright?" said Aro with calculated concern.

Distraction. I needed a distraction. "Who made these sculptures?" I asked.

Aro looked surprised, and then relieved. I guess he had been expecting a fight or something. "He did," he said strangely, pointing back to the empty hallway.

"Who?"

"I did," said a handsome baritone voice. A man appeared out of nowhere. I jumped. You would have thought that I was used to surprise entrances by now, but apparently I wasn't.

The man was tall and muscular, with a longish gray beard and a black business suit. The lines around his mouth creased when he smiled, and his burgundy eyes glittered with good humor. This was the first vampire I had ever seen who didn't look frighteningly perfect. "Isabella, allow me to introduce to you, Signore Michelangelo."

"How pleasant to finally speak with you, Signora Cullen," said the man in deeply accented English. "I see you admire my work."

"Michelangelo?" I hissed at Aro. "The one in all the art history books? As in the Sistine Chapel's Michelangelo?"

"The same," laughed Aro. "He's worked for our family for quite some time. State paintings, 'lost' sculptures for the Volterra Museum of Art, that sort of thing. But he specializes in immortalizing our beloved Volturi Queens."

"How?" I said softly. "You weren't even born yet when Claire and Elixa died."

The mysterious sculptor gave a small, patronizing smile. "You see, signora, that is my gift. I can see memories like they are photographs. From them, I can create any time, any place, anyone for my patrons."

Something Edward had once told me popped unbidden into my head. He had once called the Volturi the "Nighttime Patrons of the Arts."

There was something in the face of the ancient artist that made me think I could trust him. "You're going to sculpt me?" I asked innocently, focusing memories of Edward into the forefront of my mind. Perhaps the signore would see them.

"That's a good possibility, Signora Cullen," he said slowly. I actually saw my Edward reflected in his red eyes. "Shall we go and talk about it?"

"Aro?" I asked politely.

"Certainly my dear," said the Volturi, sounding pleased.

Signore Michelangelo respectfully opened the door for me and escorted me back out into the hall. Immediately his face was serious and worried. I explained hastily, "I must get out of here."

"I know, signora."

"Please, call me Bella."

"Fine then," he said quickly, as we both walked quickly down the marble hallway, trying to make our footsteps absolutely silent. "Bella, I will help you."

I blinked. "They'll kill you."

"I doubt they'll kill me. I'm too valuable to them. You're valuable to them too, Bella."

"I know, they want a new Volturi Prince. But I won't give them one."

"Then we must hurry," he said as we slipped down a corridor I was not familiar with. "This is my private wing," he explained.

"Aro can read minds. He'll know where I am from you."

"Only if he comes in close contact with me, Bella."

"Then what will you do?"

"I'll pretend I've secluded myself with you to do some form studies," decided Signore Michelangelo.

"Form studies?"

"Examining every detail of someone so that you get the purist interpretation of their being. I've perfected my methods over the years," he boasted.

"How much time will that give me?"

"A few days to a week, maybe, depending on whether or not they get suspicious." Octavia appeared out of nowhere.

"Oh!" I gasped.

"Sorry to startle you, Signora Cullen. Signore asked me to bring your purse from your car. He said you needed something from it."

"Thank you, Octavia," said Michelangelo graciously. The half-vampire vanished again.

"I wish everyone would stop doing that," I grumbled, eagerly taking the purse from the artist.

"I hope you have everything you need in there," said the sculptor.

"What will I need?"

"Sunglasses, to cover your eyes (they're very red, my dear), a credit card for fast travel, your car keys, and a cell phone."

"A cell phone?" I asked, drawing my phone out of my purse. Its blinking lights told me I had new messages. Probably a lot of new messages.

"I want you to call your husband."

"Call Edward?"

"When you get to France," he amended.

"France?"

"Did I make a poor assumption when I thought you wanted to escape in one piece? Listen, and listen good, Bella," he said with aggravation, "because both our lives depend on this. In Paris the Rensard Coven will take you in. They're strong enough to keep the Volturi off your back, and they owe me a favor."

"Who are they?"

"Let's see. There's Vincent and his mate Helene, and Henri and his mate Colette. They run l'Hôtel d'Or just outside downtown Paris. And you're in luck. The Rensard Paris coven is the third largest "vegetarian" coven outside of Forks and Denali."

I looked surprised. "You know about Forks and Denali?"

"Oh, Bella, you've really not been paying attention. I've seen Tanya's coven in your memories. And as for Carlisle… we go way back." I remembered the painting on the wall in Carlisle's office, and its magnificent detail. Had Michelangelo painted it?

"I…" I started and stopped. "Thank you signore, for all your help."

"You're welcome, Bella. Now get the hell out of here."

* * *

Escaping from the Volturi compound, even as a vampire, was not easy. There seemed to be those infuriating Volturi guards at every turn. I kept my eyes straight forward as I marched firmly past them. Sensing my importance, they dipped their heads in respect.

I didn't want their respect.

I wanted the hell out of here.

Funny that it was so much easier to get into than to get out of.

When I was sure that I was lost, I stumbled on a pair of unusual doors. Unlike the heavy wooden doors of every other room, these ones were steel. _The feeding room,_ I thought with disgust, nearly tripping in my heels. Sure, I was much more graceful now as a vampire, but every now and then my old clumsiness would catch up to me.

_If they were lured into this room… then there has to be a set of doors leading back outside through the feeding room,_ I reasoned, reluctantly opening the steel death trap.

I had heard some poor soul once describe the room as 'Medieval.' As the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, I had to agree. "Sorry, gentlemen," I whispered so no one could hear me but myself, "but I have other appointments to keep. Thank you for your hospitality." I plunked the sunhat Michelangelo had given me on my head and crossed the threshold to freedom.

* * *

It was a good thing that this lonely Italian highway was deserted on this Sunday morning. I shifted my Lamborghini into a higher gear and increased my speed to a comfy 125 kilometers per hour, or about 200 mph. One, they probably would have been mowed off the road. Two, I had abandoned my stupid hat to enjoy the sunlight, and I was sparkling like you wouldn't believe.

I crossed the French border by noon, and downshifted to slow my speed as I passed through a little French village that looked remarkably like a little Italian village. The only one I saw outside was extremely cross little boy who was fighting with a puppy that had stolen his baseball.

As my now-stolen car moved through the French countryside into a more populated area, clouds abruptly blotted out the intense August sun and threatened to rain. _Luck, apparently, is finally on my side_, I thought as I hit the mechanism to raise the roof of the convertible.

* * *

It was pouring rain by the time I got into Paris that night, and I had had a hell of a time finding the l'Hôtel d'Or. "Je déteste la circulation," I growled to the stiffly-smiling woman behind the desk. **I hate traffic.**

She nodded sympathetically and asked, "Peux-je aider toi?" **May I help you?**

"Peut-être," I said with a nod. "L'appartement, s'il vous plait." **The suite, please.**

"Bien sur, madame. Ta carte de crédit, s'il vous plait," she said as I handed my credit card over. She ran it, and handed me a slip to sign. "L'appartement 617, Madame Cullen."

"Bon," I said nervously, glad that I had spent the entire ride through France flipping through a 'tourist's guide to important phrases' book. Clutching my bag tightly, I struggled to ignore the burning, scratchy feeling at the back of my throat.

I would have to deal with that soon.

But first things first. I found Suite 617 with minor trouble and unlocked the door. The large, lavish room smelled strongly of dust and soap. It was gold, from ceiling to floor. _Well, they don't call it the Gold Hotel for nothing,_ I thought with a smile.

I flopped down on the bed and turned on my phone. YOUR INBOX IS FULL. PLEASE CONSIDER DELETING YOUR MESSAGES flashed the screen. Then, YOU HAVE 55 NEW MESSAGES. YOU HAVE 211 MISSED CALLS.

"Oh, for God's sake," I growled, deleting the contents of my voice mail with one push of a button. However, I did flip through the missed calls. To my relief, none were from Michelangelo or the Volturi. Yet. The last call had been from Alice's cell, about three hours ago.

"I love you Edward," I whispered to the phone as I hit speed dial number one and listened to it ring.

* * *

**P.S. Author's Note: You asked for it, you got it. Next chapter is all Edward!**


	14. Light

**Author's Note: I own nothing.**

**You wouldn't believe the amount of effort it took to get this one out to you, especially since the first draft was lost forever when my computer crashed, and right now I'm fighting a triple migraine. But I know you all are dying to read this (I hope, I hope), so I sucked it up and re-typed it! Please review!

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_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Fourteen: Light**

**(Edward's Point of View)**

I was laying on the couch in the living room, just for a change of scenery. In the earlier part of the week, I had been lying on the couch in my bedroom.

Shapes and sounds moved past me, possibly people. I could discern neither who they were nor what they wanted, so I let them drift past me in their hazy dream world.

I was not a part of the realm of light.

I had fallen into the realm of darkness.

There was no escaping my self-inflicted tomb.

A faint, continuous buzzing burned in the back of my skull. I recognized this as people's unbidden thoughts flooding my brain with their empty messages. I ignored them dimly.

"Edward," beckoned a shrill female voice, the rest of her words lost on my dulled senses. It was like listening to a person speak underwater. "Edward!" persisted the voice, this time accompanied by a faint wail of an irritating pitch. I tried harder to sort out the female's connotation, and picked up a few more words. "Edward! Your phone is ringing!"

That explained the wail, but it did not explain who was speaking or what I was supposed to do. Perhaps nothing. I sat perfectly still; it wasn't too difficult, because that was what I had been doing for the last seven days. Success! The wail of the ringing phone stopped.

After a period of undeterminable time, the wail began again. And stopped.

And again. And stopped.

Aggravated at the devices consistency, I finally began to force myself to dig around for the phone, and found it conveniently in the pocket of my rumpled pants. For the first time in this hellish week, I actually found myself closer to consciousness than the unconsciousness I so sought.

And I waited, almost fully aware of what I was waiting for. But the silence remained, and slowly I sunk back onto the couch, convincing myself it had never happened.

"Edward?" whispered the previously shrill voice, this time soothing. I finally placed it as Alice.

"Alice?" I mumbled back, unsure if my speech was even comprehensible.

"Yes, Edward?" she said hopefully. I heard her thoughts coming in the muffled stream. Something about 'sanity.' I wondered what that was.

"Never mind," I breathed, shaking my head, willing her to go back to the realm of light where she belonged, so that she might leave me be in the realm of darkness.

"Oh," she said, deflated, standing to go.

No. No, this was not what I wanted. I didn't want her to go. I didn't want to fall back down, alone. I tried again to formulate a reason why she should stay, against my instincts. "Alice, please," I begged. She seemed to understand, and sat back down, her head upon my silent chest.

The phone rang. Funny that I could actually pick out the meaning of that sound now. One step closer to sanity. Oh, so that was what sanity was.

Immediately I flipped the phone open, catching it in the middle of the second ring. It was so natural; I wondered if I had done it before.

"Edward?" asked the voice on the other end.

I flew to an upright position, practically knocking Alice to the floor. "Edward?" pleaded the voice on the other end, "Please tell me that it's you."

"Bella?" I hissed back, a trillion connections reborn in my numb brain. With this connections spilled over the grief and pain that had overwhelmed me.

"Oh, thank God, Edward, I thought I was too late!" exclaimed the cruelly beautiful voice of my wife. "Listen Edward, and listen good," she instructed in one breath, "because all of our lives depend on this."

"I'm listening," I assured her. For the first time in seven days, I actually was. I stood and ran a frantic hand through my hair as the old possibilities slammed my brain. "Are you in trouble? Are you hurt?" I croaked.

"Yes to the first, no to the second," Bella said with a nervous laugh, "but it's my own fault."

"Bella, what have you done?" I growled, having a pretty good idea that she had done something incredibly stupid.

"Saved myself," she said with such brutal, overwhelming honesty that I wanted to weep; only I wasn't able. Then she was all business. "You and the rest of the Cullens need to get out of Forks. Maybe Tanya and her coven need to get out of Denali, too. I'm not sure how far Felix and Demetri will go to find me."

_Demetri and Felix? Volturi. Oh, Damn, Bella, what have you gotten yourself into?!_ I thought with horror. "Bella, where are you?"

"The Rensard Coven in Paris. Undoubtedly Carlisle will know the address."

Coven. She was in a coven. Then my deepest fears were confirmed. Surprisingly, this brought me more peace than anxiety.

She was a vampire. There was nothing more to it. She would be safe from the Volturi if she was hiding in another coven, at least until we could get there.

"I miss you Edward," she said with a trace of fear.

"I miss you, too, Bella." This was an understatement.

"I love you Edward. Hurry." The phone disconnected.

Alice looked startled when my eyes met hers. "That was Bella?" she said with disbelief.

"Yes," I said, almost casually. "She's hiding from the Volturi in the Rensard Coven."

Carlisle and Esme had walked in on the tail end of my sentence. My mother's eyes almost bugged out of her head, she was so surprised to see me up and moving around. "The Rensards?" asked my father.

"What do you know about them?" I asked quickly.

"They're the only 'vegetarian' coven in France," said Carlisle, his eyes far away as he thought back deep into his past. "They were a noble family who were changed in the fourteen hundreds. Um, let's see… Colette, Henri, Helene, and their leader, Vincent. Yes, that's it. They were barons or something like that just outside modern-day Paris. I believe their castle, the l'Hôtel d'Or, still stands as upscale lodging. Why?"

"Bella is hiding there," explained Alice.

"Bella is staying with the Rensards?"

"Apparently," I growled. "She thinks Demetri and Felix are tracking her. She wants all of us to get out of Forks and meet us there." Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie had joined us by now.

"I can have tickets for the first flight to Paris, Edward," offered Emmett. He hit a few keys on his laptop and brought up the airline website. "Uh, there's a flight in an hour and a half."

"Good," I said with a nod. "I can hunt and be on that flight." I turned to face my family. "I want you to follow me on the next flight, but first I need you to let Tanya know that there's trouble possibly coming their way."

* * *

I had spent the whole twelve-hour flight pretending to sleep. In actuality, I had had trouble containing myself, I was so nervous. Would she be the same? Who had she gone to change her? Why were the Volturi after her all of a sudden? Who were these Rensards, really?

Now, I stood before the door of Suite 617, and I wondered if I had the courage to knock. For a moment, I was frozen on the spot.

Then I raised my hand, gingerly, and knocked lightly on the heavy oak door.

"Un moment, s'il vous plait," requested her beautiful voice as I heard several locks creak open.

The door swung open quickly, and I felt a strong hand drag me inside. "Hello Edward," she breezed. I took one look at her and could not hold in a gasp.


	15. Angel

**Author's Note: Nothing do I own. Not now, not ever.**

**This chapter contains some fluff, and one major-important thing about the relationship between Edward and the Volturi that will play a role later on. Please review!

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_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Fifteen: Angel**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

**

He looked… like my angel. I felt like I was going to explode inside. How could I have ever left him? When he saw me, he let out a barely audible gasp, then moved, warily, towards me.

His hand touched my face, gently tugging on the streak of silver in my hair. "I was considering dyeing it," I joked weakly.

"How did this happen?" he whispered in my ear. The smell of his breath made my lungs constrict.

"Stress, I've been told." He winced. Then we were silent for a moment, each deeply absorbed in each other's scent. My honey-and-musk Romeo. Curious, I had to ask, "Do I still smell the same?"

He chose his words carefully as he tightened his grip on my waist. "It's… different. Stronger, even. But without the whole 'I want to rip you apart' side effect."

I grinned, kissing the side of his face. "Good."

"Exactly," he murmured back, kissing me on the lips in a way that might have killed me had I still been alive.

His hand strayed to the edge of my gold silk bathrobe. "Edward," I warned, breaking off the kiss. He gave me that wonderful crooked smile I so loved, and I melted.

There was nothing to hold us back now…

* * *

I lay on his chest, clinging to him with relief and overwhelming love. "I think I need to explain to you what happened," I whispered reluctantly.

"I think I need to hear it," Edward agreed, sitting up a little and helping me lay in the crook of his arm.

"It all started last Sunday, when I went to visit a doctor at Seattle General Hospital," I began.

"You went to Seattle? Why didn't you just come to Carlisle?"

"I didn't want you to know that I thought something was wrong, just in case it was nothing. Carlisle would have certainly told you."

He tensed a little. "And something **was** wrong?"

"My heart was dying."

"Oh God," he groaned lightning fast, and turned away from me. "You thought I wouldn't turn you."

"You did say you never would."

He turned his head back towards me and kissed me hard. "If I had only known, Bella, you know I would have done everything in my power to keep you with me. I love you!"

"I know you do, Edward, I love you too. That's why I couldn't put you in a position that would force you to do what you didn't want to do."

He nodded, pressing my head to his chest with his strong hands. "Where did you go?" That was the one question I did not want to answer. I remained silent. "Bella," growled Edward, "tell me."

I swallowed. "I went to the Volturi."

He flew out of bed so fast that I was practically left spinning. "Bella!" he shouted, "How could you?! No wait, don't answer that, I don't want to know!"

I pulled up the sheet with me as I stood up. I think I might have blushed had I still been able to. "Edward!" I shouted, mortified as he turned away. Suddenly I was on the other side of him, standing between him and the door.

He was taken aback. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" I said, confused.

"One second you were on the bed, and the next second you were by the door, and then-" He stopped, surprised. I was sitting on the bed now. "How did you do that?!" he hissed.

I shrugged. "I think it's a Volturi thing. I've never noticed it before." I popped next to him. "You need this," I laughed as I wrapped a sheet around him without touching him.

It was strange that I was absolutely at ease with the discovery of my gift. I had always expected it to be something important, like not needing to drink blood or being able to transform or something. This was…odd. I wasn't even quite sure what to call it.

I was able to move myself and objects with only my mind.

"Is it a telepathy thing?" I asked, unsure.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "Does it take a lot of effort?" he asked. "I remember it took me a hell of a long time to control the voices in my head."

"I don't know," I said, 'summoning' my robe back to me, "I've never been able to do anything before. I was beginning to think that Aro was wrong, and that queens only had one power."

"Aro? Queens?" said Edward. "Bella, what do you mean?" Oops, I had said **way** too much. "Carlisle," Edward moaned as he heard his father's thoughts enter his radius of perceptiveness.

"Dress," I ordered, 'throwing' his clothes back at him while I made the bed. He was fixing his shirt collar when we both heard the elevator "ding" at the sixth floor.

"Damn," I growled, vanishing into the bathroom with a sporty little white dress that Alice had bought for me. It fit rather tightly, and I had just wiggled it on when someone knocked at the door. I flew for the lipstick and hairbrush as Edward opened the door.

"Jasper, Alice," he acknowledge for my benefit as I finished throwing my suddenly unruly hair into a ponytail. I took one quick look in the mirror. My ruby eyes were already beginning to speckle with brown. Colette had brought up 'dinner' for me a few hours back- it was a bottle of sheep's blood disguised as chardonnay. _Only in France_.

"Hello," I smiled, popping out of the bathroom. Both recovered from their shock admirably. "How are you both?" Alice body-slammed me with a hug, literally pinning me to the wall. I gently pushed her off of me.

"Oh, Bella, we were so worried for you! Are you okay?"

I nodded, surprised by how glad I was to see them both. I had been so nervous. "I'm good now that you and Edward are with me," I promised.

Emmett, Esme, Rosalie, and finally Carlisle joined us in the room. The once overly-large suite room was beginning to feel a little crowded to me. Everyone, even Jasper, offered me hugs and congratulations. Except for Rosalie. Rose was her usual cool and distant self. I knew that she blamed me for however Edward might have been for the past week, so I forgave her silently.

I gave Carlisle a meaningful look. I finally understood why he had spent so much time with the Volturi- their promises of power and greatness were seductive to any being. I was proud that he had been able to leave them. I was proud that **I** had been able to leave them.

His next words startled to the core, and I was not ready for them. "So they close you to be the next queen, didn't they, Bella?"

I nodded, extending my arm to offer all of the Cullens seats either on the bed or at the table. Edward sat close to me, his gold eyes full of confusion. "How could you tell, Carlisle?" I asked, curious in spite of the situation he had placed me in.

"There is a certain mannerism, a certain scent… it's a Volturi thing, I think," he responded, mimicking my own reply to Edward earlier.

"Carlisle, what is a 'queen,' and what does it have to do with Bella?" asked Alice.

"A queen, Alice, or more specifically a Volturi Queen, is a rare kind of vampire," began Carlisle, "that can only be produced when a Volturi, both blood or adopted, bites a certain kind of woman." I was surprised by this explanation. Carlisle was implying that I would have become a Volturi Queen whether it had been Aro or Edward who had turned me. Carlisle was an 'adopted' Volturi and Edward had been turned by him, which made Edward a Volturi, too.

"What makes them different?" asked Edward warily, his arm tight around my shoulders.

"They have the ability to produce children." There was a din of confusion and surprise among all of the Cullens as they tried to sort out the implications of such an ability. I was sure that they were picturing the same family fantasy I had had when I had first found out, almost two days ago.

But the other shoe had to drop. I had to explain the reason why this would never happen with me. "A queen can only produce as many children as the number of humans she bites in the first year she is a vampire," I whispered.

At that moment, someone else knocked at the door. "It's Helene," said Edward, "let her in."

Helene, a tall, beautiful red-head who wore her hair up in a braid, flew into the room. "Bella," she said, her voice heavily accented, "trouble is coming!"


	16. Ebony

**Author's Note: Nothing do I own.**

**This is the last chapter in part two, and just to be nice this one will be in EPoV. I am considering plans for two more stories to follow this one: _Ambrosia Awakenings_ and _Ayden's Dawning_. Let me know if you would be interested in something like that.**

**Cheers! Read and enjoy.

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_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Two: The Queen**

**Chapter Sixteen: Ebony**

**(Edward's Point of View)

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"Bella," she said, her voice heavily accented, "trouble is coming!"

"Who are you?" I asked, standing up from Bella's side.

She sighed, mildly exasperated, "I'm Helene, Vincent's wife."

"Good," I said, relieved. "What kind of trouble?"

"Jane-and-Felix kind of trouble," said Alice with surprise. "This is the first I've seen it, though!"

"Sorry," whispered Bella, grabbing my arm tightly, "I've been blocking you. And I guess their future and my future was intertwined, so… you wouldn't have been able to see this," assured Bella with a tight frown.

I kissed the back of her head. "Since you understand the best what's going on… what do you want us to do?" I asked, surprised that those words were coming out of my mouth. I had so wanted to protect her from all of this.

"Helene," she began, "how long can Colette hold off Jane?"

The auburn haired woman shrugged. "I'm not sure. They've never gone as you say 'head to head' in a fight before."

"How can Colette hold off Jane?" asked Rosalie before I could get the words out of my mouth.

Carlisle had the answer. "Jane and Colette are sisters. Their powers mirror each other. While Jane causes pain, Colette causes relief." His eyes were dark with worry.

"Story later," barked Bella, a look passing between her and Helene. "We can't be sure which one of the sisters is stronger, so we better play it safe and get out of here while we still can."

Emmett struck the table with frustration. "But Bella! There are only two of them and there are twelve of us."

My Bella was surprisingly calm in the face of my brother's temper-tantrum. "Do you really want a pitched battle in the middle of the city, Emmett? No, we must draw them, and any other Guard they may have brought with them, away from the city." He fell sullenly silent, and Jasper placed a calming arm around his shoulder.

"Where will we go?" asked Esme.

"To Genevieve," said Bella, Helene, and Carlisle in unison.

"Who's Genevieve?" I had to ask.

"She's Marcus's mother," said Bella with a wry grin, "but she's on our side. Her castle in Switzerland will be the perfect place to take such a large crowd of us safely."

"Do you know how to get there?" asked Carlisle. "I was never invited to Genevieve's Geneva sanctuary."

Bella was about to shake her head 'no' when two more of our kind joined us in the room. The man had 'ghosted' the woman straight through the door. "Henri and Colette," acknowledged Bella with an expectant smile.

The man had sandy blonde hair and caramel eyes. The woman, with her petite stature and shorter hair, could have passed for Jane, except her eyes were light. Truly, she was Jane's sister. The fine lines around her eyes suggested she was several years older than Jane, though.

"I know how to get to the Alistair Castle," offered Colette. Her voice did not have the expected French accent that all of the other Rensards carried. "My brother and sister will not be here for another two hours, by Helene's visions. We can be long gone for Geneva by then."

"You can see the future like I can?" asked Alice to Helene.

Helene shook her head with a wane smile. "No, dear, I am not nearly as powerful as you are, Alice. I can see reactions to past actions, like ripples on a pond. I knew as soon as Michelangelo sent you here, Volturi would follow. But I could not tell that it would be Jane and Felix until Aro grew frustrated. Every action yields a reaction in my world."

My mind recorded, _Michelangelo?_

"A useful skill," commented Jasper.

"Agreed," said Henri, his 'r's spiraling in the unique French way.

"Are you in favor, Bella?" asked Helene politely. It was strange. I had never thought of my Bella as anything but a sweet, quiet, beautiful creature. But here she was, giving orders and receiving advice from some of the most powerful vampires in Europe, and she did it without a second thought. They even deferred to her wishes! Perhaps being a Volturi Queen had as much effect on her mind as it did on her body.

"Absolutely," said Bella, stone somber. "Will we need anything?"

"I've anticipated this," said Colette carefully, "and I've packed the necessary emergency things in the two SUVs that we have parked outside."

I was surprised. Sport utility vehicles were frowned upon in most places in Europe, especially in France, for their waste of fuel and their emissions into the already clogged atmosphere. In fact, they were only forgiven in Germany.

I hadn't been to Switzerland in many years, but I still had my doubts about how well received these two big, blacked out SUVs would receive in the beautiful mountain country. It was like riding around in a giant insult.

As I admired the luster ebony finish on the machine, I wondered if they had to have these BMWs shipped straight from Berlin. I wanted one.

"Stop it Edward," chuckled Bella as we climbed up the step into the comfy, spacious cabin. "You can think about buying one later, when we're back in the States."

My second surprise. "How did you know?"

Her eyes were mysterious and playful. "It's written clear across your face, silly. Even I, master of the opaque, could pick that one out." I shrugged.

* * *

We had been on the road for about four hours. Colette, Alice, Bella, Henri, and I were in one SUV. Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper, Esme, and Carlisle were in the other. Alice confirmed that Helene and Vincent had bravely held off Jane and Felix, who had made their departure when they realized that we were already gone.

My only hope was that we would be secure in Alistair Castle before the Volturi caught up to us again. Alistair Castle- that was something Carlisle had never mentioned to me, in all my years as his son and companion. Perhaps it meant something. Perhaps it didn't.

Colette drowsed softly on Henri's shoulder. Bella was sound asleep on mine. It was so strange to me, that vampire queens could sleep. I envied them in a way; they faced their nightmares in their dreams, while the rest of us had to live them.

I asked Henri in a low voice, "How did Colette come to be with you?"

The sandy haired Frenchman smiled lovingly and stroked his wife's hair. "We both were blessed in our own way. You see, Colette's real name is Cora DeBrak. She, Felix, and Jane were young English nobles under the ward of my neighbor, a duke in the King's court."

"Which king?" I asked.

"He was the great-grandson of the first real French king… you know, the first one after Gaul became France… shoot, can't remember the name. Anyway, the Volturi came to pay their respects to the local lords, and they sniffed out Colette and Jane. Both had potential to be queens."

"But Jane?"

"But Jane wasn't one," Henri explained. "Colette was, though, and Jane and Felix were kept on to insure she would stay."

"How did she escape?" I asked.

"The same way Bella did. Signore Michelangelo helped her get away back to my care, because I was the closest vampire noble strong enough to stand against the trio. But Jane and Felix would not return with her."

"You ended up marrying her?"

"Yes, for convenience at first. But by the time Vincent and Helene joined us, however, we were permanently attached to each other."

There was one more question that plagued me. "Did she ever… I mean, did you ever…?"

"Have children?" responded Henri knowingly.

But just before he could give me an answer, Bella awoke. Or at least, what might have been taken for consciousness.

She screamed terribly, in a voice which shook me to the core, and began thrashing violently in my arms.

Colette was instantly alert, hovering over her with anxiously. Bella opened her eyes. They were jet black. "Oh my God," moaned Colette, "the chances of this happening were one in a million."

* * *

**The Queen, fin.**


	17. Complications

**Author's Note: I own neither Twilight nor New Moon, thank you very much.**

**I was astounded by the level of positive reviews from the last chapter, most of which assured me that you do indeed want a second, or even a third story. As I'm writing this, the review total is 107. That's amazing! Thank you all so very much!**

**This chapter begins part three, the final part of my story. If thou does not like the way the story line is progressing, thou aught to stop reading. Otherwise, enjoy and review!

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_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Three: Trust**

**Chapter Seventeen: Complications**

**(Bella's Point of View)

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I awoke from a lazy slumber to the most horrifying pain I had ever felt. It was not the torturous ache I had felt after the attacks by James and Victoria, nor the fiery inferno of the vampiric change; rather it was like my whole body was trying to turn itself inside out.

My limbs lashed out because I could not restrain their agonizing spasms. My head whipped back, and I think I smashed the tinted window, but I didn't feel that. _I'm losing my mind!_ I thought desperately as my back arched in another spasm. _Vampires don't feel pain like this._

I think I may have lost my mind for a while, because the next thing I knew a cold, sweet liquid was pouring down my throat. Ravenously I gulped down the life-restoring blood, my instincts completely taking over. Then I was calm, because the spasms had stopped abruptly.

My shaking hand reached up to brush away the smear of red from my chin. Carlisle looked down upon me with fatherly concern, his gold eyes rather dark. Feeling foolish, I joked weakly, "I didn't even know I was thirsty."

He helped me upright, and new strength slammed through my veins. The shaking in my arms stopped. Hell, I felt as though I could take on the world! Any trace or sign of the murderous pain was gone. "Good thing Colette is a quick thinker," complemented Carlisle to the stone-faced woman. She, and the others, gingerly approached us. I realized that they had been standing back away from Carlisle and I, a good two hundred feet away from where the two SUVs had pulled off the road. Even Edward.

Surprised, I brought my hand to my mouth as I asked in one quick stream, "Whatthehellwasthat?"

"Human blood," sighed Carlisle as he wrapped the empty bottle back up in its brown paper.

"Oh my God," I choked, feeling nauseous at the thought.

"It was necessary," said Colette stiffly, her eyes still black from the scent of the blood that had no doubt overpowered all of them. I noted that Emmett and Henri each had a restraining arm on Jasper, who had stopped struggling and looked vaguely embarrassed.

"Why?" I growled, feeling rather hostile.

"You and Edward both won't want to hear this…" began Colette as we hurried back into the SUVs. I caught a glimpse of my eyes in the mirror and shivered when I saw their deep red color.

"Talk," ordered Edward once Alice, Henri, Colette, and I joined him in the vehicle. Henri took his turn driving, and Alice squished up against me.

Colette seemed to be struggling for words. "You… you two probably shouldn't have done what you **did**," she said cryptically. Edward seemed to understand right away.

"Oh… oh no," he moaned, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the headrest. I patted his arm sympathetically. Surely it couldn't be that bad. After all, the worst was already over and done with. Alice and I exchanged blank looks.

Suddenly it clicked, and I shoved myself into Edward's arms, the unspeakable floating on my lips. "You see, Bella, for the first few weeks, a new vampire still has all of their human blood. This of course does not stop them from being ravenously hungry, but it does give them an extra strength that older vampires do not. In queens like you and I, however, it has a second meaning. Bella you were—" She paused, looking pained. "You were pregnant."

The bottom fell out of the world.

_No, no, no, no, no, no, this can't be happening_. I struggled for words, "Were? Or am?" I finally said.

"Too soon to tell," sighed Colette, and Edward held me closer. "The whole pregnancy thing doesn't work the same in vampires as it does in humans."

"Because it isn't supposed to happen," pointed out Alice.

"Yes," agreed Colette.

"So what happened?" This was from Edward.

"There was enough human blood for her to… get pregnant, but not enough to sustain the pregnancy. Bella's body actually attacked itself, looking for enough blood to keep the baby alive."

"But you gave me… I drank…" Still uneasy about my encounter with human blood, I couldn't say it. "Did you give it to me in time?"

"Sorry, Bella, but only time will tell." Colette leaned forward and placed her face in her hands for a long minute. "In the meantime, you are never to let yourself get even close to hungry. Do you hear me?" I nodded, and leaned my head out the space of open air that had once been a window, enjoying momentarily the breeze. Little pleasures. These were things my mind could take.

Edward asked Jane's sister something, but I didn't catch it. She responded, "No, Edward, fortunately or unfortunately. With the help of the Rensards, I overcame my bloodlust long enough to resist feeding for that pivotal first year. Sometimes, though, I wonder what it would have been like to have one…"

My involuntary reaction was to place one hand over my stomach, picturing the life inside me. Colette's thoughts mirrored my own. I wondered what it would like to have a baby. Edward's baby. A boy, with green eyes and a crooked smile, playing in the sandbox.

I wondered if my baby had lived, or if those spasms of pain had been my miscarriage.

I wondered if the Volturi would take my baby away from me if I did have it.

I wondered how it would grow. Would it be like a human baby, all smiles and coos? Or would it be serious, somber, red-eyed with a devious edge to it?

Was it a life?

Would it have a heart beat?

Would it age?

Would it die?

Would I love it?

Could I take care of it?

Would Edward love it?

Would we stay together as a family?

What if?

_Only time will tell,_ I reminded myself, as if I was another person, patiently lecturing myself from outside my body.

Edward kissed my cheek, his topaz eyes as far away as my own. I snuggled closer to his hard body, my head on his shoulder.

I blinked very slowly, watching the starless night zoom by as we crossed the boarder into Switzerland. "Another two hours," said Henri absently.

"Alice?" I asked, my mind reverting back to the problem at hand. "Have you seen anything?"

"We need to hurry," urged Alice, snapping out of her visionary daze. "I saw the Volturi arriving at a big stone castle just minutes after we do."

* * *

Somewhere four hours back, a beautiful but sad female vampire named Helene relaxed in the arms of her mate, Vincent. Her face formed a small, knowing smile as the repercussions of tonight's actions unfolded before her. 


	18. Alistair

**Author's Note: I'm back from my four-day break from writing! Included on my profile now are brief hints about the next two stories, as far as I have planned them. Sorry, but I can't tell you who Lucy is!**

**I would like to answer something now. Laziirath wrote:** **_Your writing is… incredible. I'm in love with the plot too… Brilliant. lol _**

Also, with your permission, I'd like to do some fan art of scenes from the story if that's ok. (:

Can't wait for your next update.  
**-Lazii**

**Permission granted, Laziirath. Most definitely, permission granted! I can't wait to see them!

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**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Three: Trust**

**Chapter Eighteen: Alistair**

**(Edward's Point of View)

* * *

**

"Whoa," mumbled Emmett as he stepped out of the SUV.

"Don't you have anything better to say?" scolded Rosalie.

He seemed to think about it for a minute. "No, 'whoa' pretty much covers it." Jasper snickered.

Alistair Castle was situated within a picturesque mountain group in the Alps about twenty miles outside of Geneva, Switzerland. It was built in the twelve hundreds in the Romantic style, at the peak of its popularity. This meant it had little, narrow, arrow-slit windows and twelve-foot-thick walls.

The village inside the outer walls still functioned as a living community, with narrow townhouses of brownstone with slate roofs. There was a Starbucks on the corner. At this, I sighed and shook my head. The narrow spire of the clocktower announced that it was six a.m. "Do you think we'll be too early?" chuckled Emmett as he shielded his eyes from the first rays of the blossoming pink dawn.

"Nah," said Jasper, inhaling the heavy scent of freshly baked bread as we passed the bakery. "I doubt that Lady Genevieve will mind us stopping in. What to you think Bella?"

She took one final longing look back at the rows of Swiss pastries, which taunted her from the bakery window. "I think I want to live here," she responded to Jasper with an awed face when the castle returned to our view. "Can we Edward? Please?" she begged, throwing on her best pouting face. I pretended to consider it until Emmett, Alice, and surprisingly Alice joined in the wailing "please."

"Sorry, no," I said with mock sorrow, wrapping my arm around my wife's shoulder.

The shingles of the spires were painted a minty green, to complement the snowcapped peaks behind Alistair Castle. Little gold flags fluttered dutifully in the morning breeze. "Do you think Cinderella lives here?" asked Emmett.

"Or Rapunzel?" said Jasper.

"Or Sleeping Beauty?" I joined.

Alice, Rosalie, and Bella rolled our eyes in unison. "Well, it isn't Dracula's castle," offered Alice doubtfully. Colette and Carlisle suppressed smiles. Henri looked compliantly disinterested, and Esme was too busy being enthralled by the architecture of Alistair Village.

"To bad it isn't," frowned Emmett, "I think I would have liked to have met him."

"You may get your wish," Bella winked broadly. "We don't know Genevieve's mate yet."

Emmett looked confused. Jasper looked strangely satisfied. "How do we get in?" I asked Colette, who was humming a pleasant tune I had never heard before. We had reached a large wrought iron gate, which marked the boundaries of the castle compound.

"Side gate," gestured the young woman, pulling us away from the most obvious entrance. It was about four hundred feet along the high stone wall from the main gate, and was covered in blooming summer ivy. "Here," she said, feeling for the mechanism which would release the door. We waited for a moment, while her spry white fingers pressed on the lever. "Damn," she said at last, throwing her hands up in frustration, "it's locked from the inside!"

"Allow me," said Bella confidently. She disappeared from my side and reappeared on the other side of the gate, her face glowing with success.

"That is so cool," mumbled Emmett.

"How do I work the lock?" asked Bella as she peeled back layers of vines.

"Slide back the bar and push down the handle," instructed Colette. "Be careful; it's spring loaded."

Her warning came a half second late. With a yelp Bella jumped backwards, a look of shock on her face. "Oops," she giggled nervously, indicating that she was surprised rather than hurt. "Got it," she said after fumbling with the mechanism a little bit more. The door sprang open.

"You would make a very bad thief," said Emmett coolly as he and Rosalie breezed past her. A smirk played upon my sister's lips, and I had the sudden urge to wipe it off her face.

But Bella handled herself quite well. "I could have left you outside," she remarked, appearing dramatically right in front of him. Rose stopped on a dime, but Emmett nearly smashed into her.

"She makes a very convincing case," said Jasper as Alice grabbed the back of Emmett's shirt, halting his forward movement.

"I would keep that in mind in the future," advised Henri as he marched right past the growing tangle of Cullens.

"In one ear and out the other," I said, tapping my brother's ears with mirth. "He'll be lucky to remember your name tomorrow, Henri."

The Rensard shared my laugh. It was strange to hear him laugh; I had always assumed that ancients were permanently serious, even though Carlisle had proved this theory wrong on several occasions.

* * *

A somber feeling overwhelmed me as we were escorted into the castle by a guard who was familiar with Henri and Colette. Immediately we were appraised by a petite Italian girl in round glasses.

"Who's she?" asked Rosalie haughtily, staring down the diminutive figure.

"Gina D'Amico," responded Henri with a serious face. "She's the castle guardian."

"She's so small," said Jasper doubtfully.

"But extremely powerful," warned Henri. "She has the ability to judge a man's worth."

"Worth?" I repeated, incredulous.

"You might consider gaining some, Edward Cullen," said a snippy voice that could only be the Castle Guardian. Anger boiled up instantly inside of me, and Carlisle placed a restraining arm on my shoulder.

"Calm yourself, Edward," warned my father.

Miss D'Amico acquainted herself with each one of my family members, shaking her head at Alice, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, and Esme. She was even scornful towards Henri. The back of my mind recorded the fact that I could hear no thoughts from Gina.

"Hmm," she said in an interested way when she got to Bella, who stared back, appropriately indifferent. "Lady Isabella. How good of you to come and see us. Lady Genevieve has been waiting for you ever since Helene telephoned about your trip." Her ill-humored voice transformed into an agreeable one when she sensed Bella's importance.

"Thank you, Gina," conceded Bella in an odd tone. I shot a warning glance towards her, but she didn't seem to see me. My eyes flicked over to Colette. The same strange, aloof expression was plastered across her face as well.

"Please, Lady Isabella, Lady Colette, will you accompany me?" asked Gina. My senses barked out that something was terribly wrong. I flew across the room, placing myself between D'Amico and my wife.

"I will be accompanying Lady Isabella," I said in a warning voice. I touched Bella on the shoulder, but she shrugged me off.

"That will not be possible," frowned Gina, "but if you feel your wife is in some sort of trouble, Edward, Carlisle may join us." I looked up at my father. He nodded slowly, and thought-spoke to me, _I'll keep an eye on them, Edward. Just don't do anything stupid as long as we're inside the walls of Genevieve's domain. Remember, she is still Volturi, and we do not know if she is friendly towards our cause._

I glanced to Alice as Carlisle kissed Esme goodbye and joined Colette and Bella. _Sorry Edward, but she's blocking me again. Your guess is as good as mine,_ sighed Alice in her mind.

"This is very bad," I whispered at Henri.

"I agree."

* * *


	19. The End of the World

**Author's Notes: Only a few more chapters left in this story, everyone. Your reviews will be greatly appreciated. You know I'm famous for cliffhangers, and I'm trying to decide whether or not to end the final chapter on one, or if I should include an epilogue. Your reviews will be the deciding factor!

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**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Three: Trust**

**Chapter Nineteen: The End of the World**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

**

There was an incessant humming in the base of my skull, like someone had shoved a tiny kazoo into my brain. Everything around me was strangely foggy, like a bad dry ice projector or taking a walk in a San Francisco morning. I knew vaguely that I had no control over my own body, but this bothered me little, because I felt the presence of two friends beside me.

I wondered if Colette and Carlisle were feeling the same effects that I was. If I moved slow enough, I found that I could lift my head to see Colette's face. Her eyes were hazed by the same hypnotic glaze, blinking sleepily despite our brisk pace. Good. I was not alone.

I wondered who or what controlled my deliberate footsteps. Was it Gina? No, that did not seem to be her talent. Could it be the ever-mysterious Lady Genevieve? No, I doubted she would force us, especially when we had come this far willingly. Then it must be a third presence, one that we had not met as of yet. Not an acquaintance of Colette or Henri- they would have warned us.

At some length we arrived at an ornamentally carved set of double doors. I felt Carlisle hesitate behind me- they were identical to a prominent pair in the Volturi compound. I felt no such hesitation, mostly because I couldn't.

"Hello, Isabella," hissed the sickeningly familiar voice of Aro.

I was frozen, rooted to the ground, partially because of fear, but mostly because of the overwhelming power that controlled every muscle.

The world erupted around me. Carlisle shouted something, something that my muffled ears could not comprehend. I could not even turn my head and watch the chaos as a swarm of vampires rushed out to subdue my struggling companions.

There was screaming. Then the scream was cut short, and the terrible smell of fire hit my overly-sensitive nose. My mind accepted what my heart could not- someone was dead, and doubtless it wasn't Aro.

My senses were overwhelmed, and my mind pitched forward into the safety of black despair as cold hands dragged me away.

* * *

"Where am I?!" I screamed into the darkness for the umpteenth time.

To my surprise, this time I got an answer. "You are safe here, Bella." The voice was light and lyrical, with a heavy accent of a long-dead language.

"Who are you?" I asked with a whimper as a towering phantom lit up the eternal light. It was like watching a moving painting, and once again I could appreciate the skill of the artist Michelangelo. **This** was Genevieve, the most beautiful of the Volturi queens. The last of the Etruscan princesses.

"I am Lady Genevieve," she explained unnecessarily in her benevolent, musical voice.

My voice was shaky and weak, but I managed to reply, "I bet you knew Romulus and Remus."

She laughed jovially. A chorus of angels. No wonder she lived all holed up in the mountains- she presence was too glorious for lesser beings. "Remus was my grandfather," she said with a wink, enjoying my reference to the Roman legend.

"Well then," I said, cowed by her presence, "I suppose you know who I am and why I am here."

"Marcus filled me in on the details, my dear," she agreed. The light pouring from her skin faded, but the room as a whole brightened until it was bearable.

It was my bedroom, back in Forks.

I nearly fainted.

"You don't like it?" Genevieve said with motherly concern. "I picked it out of your memories as being a happy place. But maybe I was wrong…" She nibbled on her lip as she surveyed her creation with frustration.

"How did you do this?" I demanded.

"My gift, dear Bella, is to create illusions in the mind. Not very useful for fighting, but excellent for consoling prisoners. You don't even want to know where you are really." Her voice became unexpectedly bitter. "I cannot stop Aro and Caius from doing as they please, though I have some sway over my son Marcus."

"Oh," I said, my mind numb as I carefully picked up a CD from the nightstand. It was the one that Edward had burned for me for my eighteenth birthday- funny that I would leave it behind in Charlie's house.

I had never come back to the place where my father died, so this all was a bit of a nasty shock to me. At least there weren't blood stains smeared across the floor.

"Aro forced Maelus to use his power on you, Gina, and Colette; I tried to intercept him, but only ended up getting Colette and myself killed."

Panic swarmed over me. "You're… dead? Then am I?" I hissed.

"Oh, no, no, poor Bella. You're still alive. You can see me as an echo of my gift. In fact, I only exist in your mind now."

"Good," I breathed, but then felt guilty. "I'm sorry about what happened to you."

She laughed. "It was a noble sacrifice, one I had been looking for, for a long time. When you get to be my age, you begin to wonder if eternity is worth it! Besides, Colette and I bought your family a little more time. Marcus and Maelus are so angry that they may just quit the Volturi altogether." She seemed to thing this was humorous.

"Who is Maelus?"

"Maelus is my other son. Poor thing was born unable to speak, but his gift more than made up for it."

"What is his gift?"

"Telepathy. He can communicate with his mind."

"And he controlled us," I said, angry.

A sharp pain pierced the back of my skull. "Bella!" Genevieve shrieked as I spiraled back out of this dream world…

* * *

I can not tell you how long I had been in this blackened room. Long enough, I suppose, to be impossibly thirsty.

Every muscle quivered as I struggled to restrain myself. I had discovered that if I could not see where I was going, I could not use my powers to get there. Heaven help the world if I could free myself in such a condition!

Suddenly, there was someone with me in this pitch-black space. "Hungry, Isabella?" simpered Caius from somewhere to my right. I lunged, snarling, no longer able to form rational thoughts. This one did not smell like food. But the other one… yes, the other one smelled very much like food.

Unable to stop myself, I attacked the being, who did not even have time to whimper before I destroyed their jugular. _Blood. Food,_ I thought as I frantically finished my meal. For those who do not understand, starving a vampire is like torturing a man to insanity. One more day and I might have never come back from the edge of madness.

But there was a price. _Oh my God!_ I thought with unimaginable horror, _I've just killed a human!_

Shivering and shaking, I collapsed, wailing softly and rocking back and forth.

What sort of monster had I become?

To me, this was the end of the world.


	20. For What I Have Done

**Author's Note: I have been asked about the possibility of Bella dyeing the gray streak in her hair. Sorry, no can do. They haven't invented a hair dye strong enough to penetrate a vampire's locks-of-steel. That's not my idea; that premise belongs to Stephanie Meyer. That's also why vampires can't get hair cuts. (Bent scissors!)**

**Other questions or suggestions? The _Freesia Juliet_ forum is now open for business. Check the bottom of my profile for the link or remove the spaces and go to http:// www. fanfiction. net/ f/ 923618

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**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Three: Trust**

**Chapter Twenty: For What I Have Done**

**(Bella's Point of View)

* * *

**

Time has stopped for me.

I wonder if Carlisle is still alive.

I wonder if Henri knows his mate is dead.

I wonder if Edward knows I am alive.

I wonder if Edward knows the monster I have become.

I wonder who the human was that I killed.

There is an empty ache where my heart once was. I wonder how strong I would have to be to die like Genevieve and Colette did. Or how weak I would have to be to not fight back. I am probably that weak right now.

I want to die.

I want to live.

I never want to bring another being into this hateful world.

I want to see my baby's face.

I wonder if there is anything I can do to make up for the life I have taken. I wonder if this means that I can have a second child, or if this blood sacrifice will simply feed the first child that I have unexpectedly created.

Too bad suicide is so damn hard for vampires. Impossible.

I wonder if love exists in death. Romeo and Juliet were so damn sure, but now I feel as though I am forever separated from Edward. Unworthy. My poor, poor Edward.

I am not Juliet.

I am not that strong.

I cannot be the fantasy girl that everyone expects me to be.

I cannot be just a little sister.

I cannot be just a friend.

I cannot be just a wife.

I am a mother.

And that means responsibility. **Big** responsibility.

And now I know what I must do.

I will protect my child.

I will get to Edward.

There will be hell to pay.

* * *

I rose from the fetal position, carefully tasting the dried blood that crusted the top of my lip. It tasted like rust and salt. Some things never change. "You're a messy feeder," pointed out Caius, who was still watching over me.

"You're a poor excuse for a jailor," I sneered, 'popping' behind him and delivering a stunning roundhouse kick to the back of his skull.

He went flying, crashing against the wall of the cell. "So you've figured out your power."

"One of many," I pointed out. There was a metal chair for him to sit in, in the left front corner of the cell. Perfect. I sent it flying into his chest. He struggled, pinned to the wall by the floating furniture. My telekinesis was coming in handy already.

"Bella!" he gasped.

"I aught to kill you," I snarled, my hands balling up into fists. "But I'll save that for my husband and my brothers. **Keys**," I intoned, and they flew from his pocket into the palm of my right hand. He looked confused. "Oh, no, I don't need them to escape, my dear Caius. I'll just use them to keep you where you belong. Locked up."

I vanished from the room and took off running in an indiscriminate direction. _I don't care where I go; I just need to get far away._

_Bella!_ shouted a voice in my head. I stopped dead in my tracks. Floating in the hallway as a sad apparition was the image of Lady Genevieve.

"What do you want?" I asked the specter, incredulous.

_I can help you get to your husband,_ she promised.

"Why can I still see you?"

_I'm a part of your mind now, Bella. Let me help you,_ she pleaded.

"Okay," I consented, "I'm probably crazy anyway. Lead the way, Princess."

The image of the dead mistress of Alistair Castle transformed into a blinking ball of light. The dark hallways were bathed in this cleansing light, and I followed it resolutely. I wondered if others would be able to see this light.

From the belly of the castle I, or rather, we made our way up the stairs and into the more recognizable parts of the structure. "How long have I been gone?" I asked her, not really expecting an answer.

_Thirty-seven hours,_ she thought-spoke calmly. _It's a strange thing to say. You've been hostage for thirty-seven hours. I've been dead for thirty-seven hours._

I grimaced. "Sorry."

_Don't be, m'dear. I'm already at peace with the whole thing. Besides, I'm still here spiritually if not temporally._

"What?"

_My soul has taken up residence in your mind, even though my body is gone._

"I must not be the most hospitable host," I laughed. _Okay, I'm insane._

_No you're not,_ she countered.

_You can hear my thoughts? Oh, yeah, duh. I knew that._

She was silent after that, but the light increased and I was not afraid. Funny, I hadn't realized that I was afraid. Fear was such a human emotion that I scarcely believed that I could ever feel it. Today was tomorrow. It was seven a.m. The sun would be up once we got to the surface levels. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

_Not totally unexpected,_ soothed Genevieve, _seeing how your life is coasting on the borderline of insanity right now._

"Good point," I said. "On a more serious note, though, what is it like to be… detoxed?"

_What?_

"You know," I struggled, "to go off of human blood. Jasper always seems to have so much trouble with it… and I've already proven that I have no self control."

_It hurts, Bella,_ she admitted. _And it's going to take a lot of time. That's one of the reasons I isolated myself here in Geneva. It took me a few centuries!_

Horrified, I whispered, "I don't have a few centuries. I have nine months if I want to raise my child in any aspect of civilization."

_You are going to raise your child by yourself?_ she said, sounding curious.

"Edward and the other Cullens will be there to help me," I defended hotly.

_How will you get away from Caius and Aro?_

"What do you mean?" I growled, stopping dead in my tracks.

_The Volturi will claim your child as the next heir,_ she explained sadly.

"Not if I have anything to do with it!" I shrieked, smashing my fist into the wall.

Through the hole, I heard a voice shout with disbelief, "Bella?!"

"Edward?" I mumbled back, feeling shockingly hollow when Genevieve vanished from my side.

There was a lot to make up for. For what I had done.


	21. Epilogue: Moments

**Author's Note: I've decided to end _Freesia Juliet_ on an optimistic note, so I've included this epilogue to tie the story together. Please read and review, everybody. Within the next few days the sequel, _Ambrosia Awakenings_, will begin!

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**

_**Freesia Juliet**_

**Part Three: Trust**

**Chapter Twenty-One: Epilogue: Moments**

**(Edward's Point of View)

* * *

**

**The Eleventh of May**

**Port Elizabeth, South Africa**

"Brandy? Cigar?" suggested Emmett with a snicker. Distractedly, I batted away the imaginary offerings away.

"Stop being stupid," commanded Rosalie coolly from her position in the wicker chair.

"Isn't that what the occasion demands?" complained her husband. "Tell them, Jasper! That's how they did it in 'the olden days'."

"**The olden days**?" repeated Jasper with mock horror. "I shouldn't know; I wasn't there. Ask Carlisle."

"You're all idiots," pointed out Alice with a frown. I laughed inwardly at her impatience. Bella had blocked Alice's "sight" again, so Alice had no more foresight than the rest of us did about this impossible miracle.

A baby.

My baby.

Our baby.

It makes one's head reel with the possibilities.

If anyone knew what to expect, it was Esme, because she was the only one of us to ever have her own child. But what would a vampire baby be like? Would it grow and age? What would it eat? We haven't found it to be in our best interests to ask Aro, Caius, or Maelus what growing up vampire was like, and Marcus has vanished. Lady Rebekkah, our kind hostess here in Port Elizabeth, has remained surprisingly secretive about the whole thing.

* * *

"_Do you think it tastes good?" chuckled Bella lightly as she stirred the pot of bubbling red liquid. Spaghetti sauce. Ironic, but it was World Foods Week at the Academy for Exceptionally Bright Girls in Port Elizabeth, and Italian was Bella's best style._

"_The first bunch seemed to like it," I said lovingly, my eyes transfixed by her swollen stomach. My daily miracle was to watch it expand as a precious life form grew._

"_Ah, to be able to taste it," smiled Bella, placing a hand on her back as she surveyed her handiwork. Dozens of uniformed girls of Dutch, English, or African descent hustled themselves into the dining hall to enjoy a taste of the Mediterranean. Yesterday, Henri had tempted them with crepes for breakfast, quiche for dinner, and coq au vin for supper. Tonight, Rebekkah will take her turn, serving linguine for supper with Alice as her exuberant helper._

_Poor Henri had never really recovered from the death of his mate eight months ago. Carlisle and Bella never did tell me what happened in that ambush at Alistair Castle, only that Colette and Lady Genevieve gave their lives to protect us._

_How had we escaped Alistair Castle alive? Bella says thank Genevieve. I will forever be in the dark about that one. It is times like these that I wish I could read my wife's mind._

"_Bells?"_

"_Hm?" she said pensively, her chocolate brown eyes glowing._

"_What are you thinking about?" I asked, feeling a little foolish._

"_Baby names," she admitted with a short laugh._

"_Really?" I said, raising an interested eyebrow. "What sort of names?"_

_She stuck out her tongue. "Not telling."_

"_Why?" I said with frustration. Neither Alice nor I had gotten the slightest hint as to what the name would be. Of course, I respected the fact that the decision was hers, but if she named him 'Jacob' I might be forced to disown him._

_Or maybe it would be a her. Unfortunately, ultrasounds, or in fact any kind of wave or radiation, would not register in a vampire. (That's why Emmett called Bella the "Lead Cocoon.") We are entirely in the dark about the baby's gender._

"_Not even a small clue?" I begged, turning the charm on full blast. It was what Bella still referred to as "dazzling."_

_She seemed to wilt under my penetrating gaze. "I've made a promise."_

"_To who?"_

"_To Genevieve."_

"_Oh. What about?"_

"_The name."_

"_Right," I deadpanned. "You made your resident ghost an oath."_

"_No, not an oath, a gift," she countered. "If it's a girl…she'll be named after Genevieve's mother."_

_My eyes widened. "We're going to name our baby after the grandmother of one of our enemies?"_

_Bella wrinkled her brow. "Don't think of it like that, Edward! And besides, Marcus is our ally now."_

"_Maelus isn't," I pointed out._

"_If it is a girl, I'm naming her after an Etruscan queen. Think of it historically."_

_I gave in. "So what it the name?"_

"_Not telling."_

"_Bella," I coaxed, wrapping my arms around her rounded form, "why won't you tell me? I'll let you name him after Charlie when it's a boy-"_

"_-If it's a boy-"_

"_Okay," I conceded, "if it's a boy, Edward Charles Cullen the Third."_

"_The third?" snickered Bella. "The first two were Masens."_

"_What's your point?" I protested. "I'm Edward Anthony Masen Jr."_

"_A.K.A. Edward Cullen the Second."_

_I paused. "I'm confused."_

"_So am I," Bella admitted. She made a small face. "I can't…name the baby after Charlie."_

_I kissed the top of her head and she shivered. "Why not?"_

"_Because then I'd see my father's disappointed face every time I looked at my baby!" she snapped._

"_His 'disappointed face'?" I repeated, barely audible to even a vampire's sharp ears._

"_On the last night I saw him," she confessed, "Charlie was so angry that I came in so late without even a phone call. He was worried sick, I think, and I could read the disappointment in his eyes." I brought her closer as she began to dry sob in my arms. "I didn't even tell him that I loved him, and he was just five minutes away from death!" She stiffened, shuddering. "Oh, God, Edward, I can't live like this," she swore in a harsh whisper._

"_Human memories fade, Bells," I promised her as my heart broke for her._

_She shook her head. "Not this. No, this will stay with me forever," she said vehemently._

"_You've only been a vampire since August. Give it time, Bella," I begged._

"_Okay, for you, Edward," she promised, and let me kiss her._

_Then she doubled over with pain, surprise written across her face. "Oh. Wow."

* * *

_

"God damn," swore Emmett with extreme frustration. "It's been twenty-seven hours, Ed! How long does a baby take?"

"How the hell would I know?" I retorted with a grimace, digging my fingers into the plaster of the wall. We were in the nurse's office at the academy, because Bella and Carlisle were in the infirmary wing. None of us had felt it would be safe to have a supernatural infant in an unsuspecting maternity ward.

At that very moment, Carlisle peeked his head through the door. "Edward, will you come in here?" he suggested very casually. His face was cautiously distant, but Jasper read his emotions like an open book and betrayed them with a whoop of joy. Both of my idiot brothers began to prance around the room with explosive grins, dragging their wives behind them.

"Go meet my grandchild," ordered Esme.

"Good luck Edward," said Alice breathlessly.

"Thanks," I griped, nervously marching in toward my destiny.

The first thing I noticed was Bella's face. It was sallow, waxy, and sunken, but her eyes sparkled with sheer delight. _She had a rough time of it,_ Carlisle explained in thought-speak. _Pain medication and all the modern birthing conveniences do not work on us, so we basically had to go back to medieval style. Think ripping a piece of steel with your bare hands._

"Oh," I said softly, acknowledging his 'words.' "How do you feel, Bells?" I asked warily.

She laughed, and her laughter filled me with relief. "A werewolf sat on my chest and mocked me for twenty-some hours, and I couldn't get to him," she giggled breezily, "but then the endorphins kicked in. I'm glad we still have those."

My eyes traced the curve of her body down to a little bundled cocoon of white. "Hello," I greeted softly, sitting down on the bed. "Welcome to the world, ambrosia eyes," I whispered, looking into the face of love incarnate. The liquid-gold eyes stared curiously at me, decided I wasn't a threat to their narrow world, and blinked patiently, waiting to find out my role in their existence. My voice caught as I dared to ask, "What name have you chosen?"

Bella reclaimed her precious prize. "Lucinda Rae Cullen," she said firmly, as if daring me to question it.

My mind whirled as I processed it. "A good name," I consented, "if not a little old fashioned."

"I have old fashioned tastes," retorted my wife.

"That you do," I agreed. "So this is your gift to Genevieve?"

"It's an anglicizing of her mother's name," nodded Bella, "but we're going to call her Lucy."

"We are?" I asked softly. Another girl from another time with that name flickered through my mind for the briefest of moments. A human memory, long forgotten.

"Yes."

"And Rae?"

"Rosalie Alice Esme," she chuckled.

"Edward Emmett," added Jasper with a knowing grin as my whole family poured into the room. "Why don't Carlisle and I get our names in there too?"

"Rajec?" snorted Rose.

Alice silenced both of them. "Welcome to the family, Lucy Cullen."

The coppery blonde head bobbed up and down in agreement as she yawned loudly.

So this was how my daughter came to be. But this is far from the end…

* * *

_**Part three, Trust, fin.**_

**THE END**


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